Fractional · Interim · 25+ years
Fractional Head of Payments.
Senior ownership of acceptance, cost, suppliers, routing and the team, by the day or by the month, from someone who has run payments at group level for listed and private businesses. Also available as interim Head of Payments to cover a vacancy or lead a programme.
When you need this seat filled
- The incumbent has left and the search will take months.
- Acceptance rate or cost per transaction has moved and nobody owns the answer.
- You are entering markets that need new acquirers, methods and settlement currencies.
- Supplier contracts are up for renewal and you want someone who has negotiated 180+ of them.
- Payments sits between finance, engineering and operations as a side task for all three.
What I do in the first 90 days
- Rebuild the acceptance and cost picture from raw data, by acquirer, provider, method and market.
- Audit every processing agreement against the invoices and against industry pricing benchmarks.
- Set routing, retry and redundancy rules with the product team.
- Fix the team and the operation: roles, KPIs, shift cover, supplier ownership, settlement and reconciliation.
- Put live monitoring in place so the next drift is caught in hours, not quarters.
What done looks like
- Typically 10 to 15% lower processing cost within the first month and 10 to 15% higher acceptance across markets.
- A supplier map with primary, secondary and fallback routes per market.
- Monitoring that tells you when something degrades, not when a customer complains.
- A permanent hire briefed, or a team that no longer needs one.
Who this is for
PSPs, acquirers, gateways and high volume operators and merchants.
For a PSP or gateway the seat covers acquirer and scheme relationships, portfolio economics, routing product and merchant onboarding. For a merchant it covers acceptance, cost, supplier mix and checkout performance. For an acquirer it covers merchant risk, portfolio monitoring and scheme compliance. The common thread is that the numbers are owned by one accountable person.
Reference points: a €8m a year acceptance-rate programme across 20+ brands, €4m+ a year removed from processing cost by renegotiating every supplier, 180+ acquirer and PSP relationships owned at group level, and payments and risk operations teams of up to 160 agents across nine countries. The case studies have the detail.
Engagement shapes
- Interim
- Full-time or near full-time, 3 to 9 months, to cover a vacancy or lead a migration, RFP or market entry
- Fractional
- 1 to 3 days a week, ongoing, reviewed quarterly
- Review first
- A fixed-fee 2 to 4 week payments and risk review if you want the plan before the person
- Location
- Remote from Spain, on site across Europe when it matters
Questions people ask
Fractional Head of Payments FAQ
What does a fractional Head of Payments do?
Owns the payments function for an agreed number of days a month: acceptance rate, processing cost, acquirer and PSP relationships, routing and redundancy, reporting and the team. The difference from a consultant is accountability. The seat is filled, decisions get made, and the numbers are owned.
What is the difference between fractional and interim?
Interim is full-time or close to it for a defined period, usually to cover a vacancy or lead a programme. Fractional is part-time and ongoing, typically one to three days a week, for businesses whose payments function needs senior ownership but not a full-time executive. I take both forms.
How quickly can you start and how long do engagements last?
Usually within two weeks of a first call. Interim cover runs three to nine months. Fractional engagements run six months to several years, reviewed quarterly, with a defined exit and handover.
What results should we expect?
Across advisory and interim engagements since 2019 the typical pattern is 10 to 15% lower processing cost within the first month and 10 to 15% higher acceptance rates across markets, on the client's own systems, data and supplier relationships.
Do you work with PSPs and acquirers, or only merchants?
All three. I have owned 180+ acquirer and PSP relationships from the merchant side and run payments and risk for listed groups, so I know both sides of the contract.
Need the seat filled this month?
Thirty minutes is enough to tell whether I am the right person and what the first month would cover.