Interim · Fractional · 25+ years
Head of Risk & Fraud, when the ratios are the problem.
Interim or fractional leadership of fraud, chargebacks, payouts and merchant risk for online merchants, PSPs and acquirers. The reference point: chargebacks held under 0.5% across a 20-brand listed group while payouts got 80% faster, with operations teams of up to 160 agents across nine countries.
When you need this seat filled
- A scheme, acquirer or sponsor bank has put you on notice for chargebacks, fraud or enumeration.
- Fraud losses or promotional abuse are growing faster than volume.
- Payouts are slow because manual review is the only control you trust.
- You onboard merchants and need underwriting and monitoring that hold up to a scheme review.
- The risk team has lost its head, or never had one.
What I do in the first 90 days
- Establish the real ratios by scheme, MID and descriptor, and the merchants, methods or campaigns driving them.
- Map every control across registration, pay-in and payout, and remove the ones that only add friction.
- Tune rules, 3DS strategy and device fingerprinting against actual loss data.
- Put chargeback, fraud and enumeration ratios on a dashboard against the thresholds that apply to you.
- Train the team on a high-risk and real-time tooling, and set review SLAs.
- Run the risk operation as a measured function: queues, SLAs, quality checks and staffing across markets and time zones.
What done looks like
- Ratios back under threshold and staying there, with the evidence file the scheme or acquirer asked for.
- Payout processing time down sharply without raising loss.
- Promotional and bonus abuse cost cut, around 30% in my reference case, through data intelligence.
- A documented control framework that a regulator, auditor or scheme reviewer can follow.
Scheme programmes
Numbers that decide whether you keep processing.
Visa's Acquirer Monitoring Program scores merchants on fraud reports plus disputes divided by settled card-not-present transactions, with the Excessive merchant threshold at 1.5% in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific since April 2026, and acquirers at 0.5% and 0.7%. Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Program flags merchants from 100 chargebacks and 1.5%. An acquirer close to its own limit will act against a merchant long before the published merchant threshold. I manage to the acquirer's number, not just yours.
Covered in this seat
- Fraud rules, scoring and vendor tuning
- Chargeback and dispute management, representment, pre-dispute alerts
- Scheme programme management: Visa VAMP, Mastercard ECP and EFM
- Merchant underwriting and monitoring for acquirers and PSPs
- Payout controls and high-risk customer intelligence
- Device fingerprinting, velocity, promotional abuse
- 3DS and SCA strategy that protects conversion
Questions people ask
Head of Risk & Fraud FAQ
We have been warned by Visa, Mastercard or our acquirer. How fast can you act?
Within days. The first week establishes the real ratios by scheme and MID, the drivers behind them, and the remediation plan the acquirer or scheme expects to see. The following weeks execute it: rule changes, pre-dispute tools, descriptor and refund hygiene, and the evidence file for the party that raised the notice.
What chargeback and fraud results are realistic?
My reference point is a chargeback ratio held under 0.5% across a 20-brand listed group while payout processing time fell by 80%. Results depend on the vertical and the starting position, but a sustained move below scheme thresholds within one to two reporting cycles is the normal target.
Do you cover merchant underwriting and monitoring for acquirers and PSPs?
Yes. Underwriting, ongoing merchant monitoring, portfolio-level ratio management against Visa and Mastercard programmes, and the documentation a scheme review or sponsor bank expects.
Is this a tool recommendation or a leadership role?
A leadership role. I run the function, tune whatever tooling you already have, and only recommend new tools when the existing ones cannot do the job. I have no vendor affiliations or referral fees.
On notice, or want to stay off it?
Bring last month's ratios to a call. I will tell you what the first week would change.