Description
PayPal is seeking a Senior Director of Payments Operations and Strategy to lead payments operations and strategic direction for PayPal Europe, with a particular focus on the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) ecosystem.
This senior leadership role sits at the intersection of payments strategy, regulatory operations, and cross-border execution, requiring close partnership with PayPal's EU regulatory, compliance, and banking stakeholders, as well as global Payments, Product, and Engineering teams.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own the strategic roadmap for PayPal Europe's SEPA payment operations, including SCT, SCT Inst, and SDD, aligned to broader EU payments strategy and PayPal's global payments architecture.
- Represent PayPal Europe's payments strategy in engagements with the European Payments Council, EBA CLEARING, national SEPA associations, and correspondent/agent banks.
- Anticipate and plan for regulatory and scheme evolution, including PSD3/PSR, the SEPA Instant mandate, Instant Payments Regulation compliance deadlines, and IBAN/name-check (Verification of Payee) requirements.
- Build business cases for expanding instant payments coverage, reducing settlement risk, and optimizing SEPA-related processing costs across EU markets.
- Act as the senior payments voice within PayPal Europe's leadership team, based out of the Luxembourg entity.
Operations Management:
- Own end-to-end SEPA operations: credit transfer and direct debit processing, settlement, reconciliation, R-transaction (returns, refusals, rejects, reversals, refunds) handling, and exception management.
- Define and monitor KPIs specific to SEPA performance: SCT Inst success/settlement times, SDD mandate and dispute rates, R-transaction volumes, ISO 20022 message-quality/straight-through processing rates, and incident mean-time-to-resolution.
- Ensure operational resilience and business continuity for SEPA payment rails, including incident management, root-cause resolution for payment disruptions, and a defined on-call/escalation rotation for the Luxembourg-based operations team.
Regulatory, Risk & Compliance:
- Ensure PayPal Europe's SEPA operations comply with EPC rulebooks (SCT, SCT Inst, SDD Core, SDD B2B), PSD2 (and forthcoming PSD3/PSR), the Instant Payments Regulation, and CSSF supervisory expectations.
- Partner with PayPal's EU Compliance, Legal, and Regulatory Affairs teams on regulatory reporting, audits, and supervisory reviews conducted by or on behalf of the CSSF.
Vendor & Stakeholder Management:
- Manage and negotiate relationships with SEPA-participating banks, payment infrastructure vendors, and clearing and settlement providers.
- Monitor vendor and bank partner SLAs, driving accountability for settlement timeliness, cost, and service quality.
Team Leadership:
- Potential to lead a team in the future.
- Foster close collaboration with PayPal's global Payments Operations organization to ensure European SEPA strategy is integrated with worldwide payments initiatives.
Qualifications:
- 15+ years of experience in payments, fintech, or banking operations, with at least 5 years in senior leadership roles (Director-level or above, leading multi-market or multi-team operations).
- Deep, hands-on knowledge of SEPA schemes , SCT, SCT Inst, SDD Core and B2B , including EPC rulebooks and EBA CLEARING/national clearing infrastructure.
- Strong understanding of EU payments regulation: PSD2 (and awareness of PSD3/PSR developments), the Instant Payments Regulation, and CSSF/EU regulatory supervisory expectations.