Payments & Cards SME Lead – Disputes Management

Role Overview

Key Responsibilities

• Own the payments and cards domain expertise for the Disputes Management platform.
• Define and validate the end-to-end card dispute lifecycle, including:
  • Dispute initiation
  • Classification and reason-code mapping
  • Documentation and evidence validation
  • Representment
  • Pre-arbitration / arbitration
  • Network submission
  • Network responses and rejects
  • Final resolution and closure
• Provide functional expertise for Visa and Mastercard dispute processes and integrations.
• Guide engineering teams on Visa and Mastercard API integrations, including request/response structures, validations, error handling, status management, and network-specific workflows.
• Translate network rules and payment-domain requirements into product requirements, business rules, workflows, and acceptance criteria.
• Provide expertise on card transaction lifecycle, authorization, clearing, settlement, chargebacks and disputes.
• Ensure correct interpretation and usage of ISO payment/message codes, card transaction codes, dispute reason codes and network-specific codes.
• Provide guidance on PCI DSS requirements and ensure relevant payment-data handling considerations are incorporated into the solution.
• Work with architects and developers to identify domain and integration dependencies across banks, processors, card networks and payment systems.
• Review and validate dispute workflows, API specifications, business rules and solution designs from a payments-domain perspective.
• Support analysis of network responses, rejects, exceptions and edge cases and help define appropriate system handling.
• Stay current with changes in Visa/Mastercard rules, dispute regulations, APIs and payment industry standards.
• Act as the primary Payments SME for client discussions, requirement workshops, solution walkthroughs and domain-level clarifications.
• Mentor product managers, business analysts and engineering teams on cards, payments and disputes.

Required Skills & Experience

• Minimum 3 years of hands-on experience in Cards & Payments, preferably within banking, payment processing, card networks or fintech.
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end card payments lifecycle.
• Practical experience working with Visa and Mastercard payment/dispute processes.
• Experience with Visa and Mastercard APIs or network integrations.
• Strong understanding of card disputes / chargebacks and the dispute lifecycle.
• Knowledge of representment, pre-arbitration, arbitration, dispute reason codes and evidence requirements.
• Good understanding of ISO payment/message codes and card/payment transaction codes.
• Working knowledge of PCI DSS and secure handling of card/payment data.
• Experience translating business/payment-network requirements into functional requirements and technical specifications.
• Ability to work closely with engineering, architecture, product, QA and client teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to understand complex payment scenarios and exceptions.

Good to Have

• Experience working with banking processors, card issuers, acquirers or payment service providers.
• Experience with Visa Claims Resolution (VCR) and/or Mastercard dispute frameworks.
• Exposure to ISO 8583 and card transaction messaging.
• Experience with payment gateways, processors or core banking/card processing platforms.
• Experience working on AI/automation-driven dispute management or payment operations.
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance considerations in card payments.
• Experience in Agile product development and working with distributed engineering teams.

Key Success Measures

• Establish accurate end-to-end payment and dispute workflows.
• Reduce ambiguity between network rules, business requirements and technical implementation.
• Ensure Visa/Mastercard integrations correctly handle happy paths, exceptions and network responses.
• Enable engineering teams to build a compliant, scalable and production-ready Disputes Management platform.
• Serve as the go-to Cards & Payments authority for the product and delivery teams.

Preferred Profile