Vice President Merchant Risk (Acquiring)

About QNB Group

QNB Group was founded in 1964 as Qatar’s first commercial bank owned by Qatari interests. Since then, it has expanded into the largest banking group across the Middle East and Africa region.

With subsidiaries and associate companies operating in more than 31 countries across three continents, the group offers a wide suite of advanced financial products and services. It employs over 28,000 people, serves up to 20 million customers, and operates through 1,000 locations supported by an ATM fleet of 4,300 machines.

The bank has retained strong regional credit standings with leading agencies such as Standard & Poor’s (A), Moody’s (Aa3), and Fitch (A+). It has also received recognition from major international financial publications and is regarded as the most valuable banking brand in the Middle East and Africa by Brand Finance Magazine.

QNB also runs an active community support initiative and backs a range of social, educational, and sporting activities.

Role Summary

This leadership position is responsible for shaping and advancing the risk management direction for Merchant Risk within the acquiring business. The successful candidate will collaborate with senior executives, risk teams, and other stakeholders to build a strong framework that supports stability, compliance, and innovation.

Key Responsibilities

In this role, you will act as a strategic partner to senior leadership on risk-related decisions and initiatives. You will design and roll out a comprehensive merchant risk strategy that supports the wider business plan, while encouraging risk awareness across the organisation.

You will track the effectiveness of risk controls and systems, recommend enhancements, and help implement industry-leading practices. The role also requires sound judgement in operating within delegated authority and assigning authority appropriately to team members. A strong understanding of the financial and non-financial drivers of the bank’s performance is essential, along with the ability to put merchant risk KPIs and best practices into action.

You will develop and maintain productive relationships with internal teams and external counterparties such as merchants, issuers, regulators, and industry partners. The position also involves ensuring that customer needs are reflected in risk processes, creating communication and engagement plans, and advising stakeholders on risk matters. In addition, you will work with domestic Group units, branches, subsidiaries, and international offices to identify fraud exposure in current systems, procedures, and people, with the aim of reducing, preventing, and repairing customer losses. You will also support procedural improvements and card-network compliance related to fraud reporting and chargeback handling.

Other responsibilities include supporting customer queries related to bank products, working in line with service level agreements to improve turnaround times, maintaining effective collaboration with related teams, and delivering accurate, timely information to auditors, compliance, financial control, and risk teams when needed.

You will oversee the full Fraud Risk Self-Assessment process, including scheduling, review of responses, and identification of control gaps, in close coordination with the Head of Risk Control Self-Assessment. You will help close internal audit findings through coordination across fraud risk functions and related departments such as Group ITD and Group Operations. The role also calls for close coordination with retail processing teams to build expertise in card-network chargeback rules and safeguard cardholder and bank rights, including liability and re-presentment opportunities.

You will partner with the Compliance function to support fraud-risk awareness training across Group divisions and departments, and keep the training material appropriate for different audience levels such as management and general staff. Continuous improvement is also a key part of the role: you are expected to drive cross-functional improvement initiatives, promote stronger-than-industry-standard practices, encourage creative thinking, and support innovative ideas in everyday work. You will lead the design and implementation of systems and processes to identify and evaluate risk in card and merchant services, ensure alignment with product development and regulatory expectations, and oversee risk awareness training and periodic assessments of risk management practices and systems.

In addition, you should bring strong knowledge of risk across card products including credit, debit, prepaid, and contactless, as well as merchant payment channels such as POS, eCommerce, and MO/TO, together with an understanding of operations, controls, and the regulatory environment. The role includes supporting your own professional growth, staying current with developments in the field, conducting regular team meetings and performance reviews, resolving conflicts or grievances quickly, and coaching staff so they can take on broader responsibilities.

Legal, Regulatory, and Risk Framework

You must comply with all relevant legal, regulatory, and internal compliance requirements, including policies related to AML & CTF, sanctions, data protection, fraud control, whistleblowing, conflict of interest, and insider dealing. You are also expected to work effectively under the Three Lines of Defence model, helping to identify, measure, monitor, manage, and report risk. The role requires you to support conduct risk expectations, the RCSA framework, KRI monitoring, incident reporting, and remediation in line with operational risk requirements. Maintaining the required qualifications, completing mandatory training, and attending compulsory internal or external seminars as directed are part of the position.

Additional Requirements and Confidentiality

You will be expected to uphold strict data protection and confidentiality standards to protect sensitive business information. Any internal or customer information obtained during work must be shared only on a need-to-know basis with senior management, audit, compliance, and relevant regulators. The role also requires you to maintain high professional standards, protect QNB’s reputation, and handle other related duties as assigned by management from time to time while working closely with both external customers and internal teams on merchant acquiring risk oversight.

Education and Experience

A bachelor’s degree is required, preferably in Marketing, Banking, Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, Information Technology, or a related discipline.

You should have at least 12 years of relevant experience, ideally gained in a highly rated international bank or a regulatory agency. Of this, at least 5 years should be in a managerial or supervisory capacity.

Application Documents

• Updated resume/CV
• Copy of passport or QID
• Copy of educational certificate