Associate Director, Payments/Scheme Economics

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

How you'll make impact

You’ll own the integrity, visibility and management of Airwallex’s payment costs, starting with card scheme fees and interchange across Visa and Mastercard. You’ll translate complex and changing network rules into accurate system configurations, financial outcomes and business decisions, ensuring we understand what every payment should cost and that those costs are reflected accurately across our systems and financials. Over time, the remit will expand across other card schemes, local payment methods and the broader payments cost base.

• Own scheme economics and rule interpretation across card schemes, starting with Visa and Mastercard fees, interchange and network rules.

• Translate scheme bulletins, operating regulations and fee schedules into clear financial, product and operational requirements.

• Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure payment cost calculations, allocations and customer billing reflect current network rules across markets and payment flows.

• Establish governance, testing and controls across scheme configurations, reconciling expected costs against actual network charges and driving root-cause resolution.

• Build models and analytics across markets, products, payment methods and transaction types to create visibility into unit economics, margin drivers and cost movements.

• Identify and execute opportunities to improve payment economics through transaction qualification, BIN routing, cost configuration and other levers.

• Translate payment economics into recommendations for customer pricing, product design, market launches and commercial strategy.

• Partner with Product, Engineering and Data to strengthen cost engines, fee allocation logic, dashboards and automated controls, using AI and advanced analytics to accelerate rule interpretation and surface optimisation opportunities.

• Serve as the escalation point for scheme pricing, interchange and rule-related questions, working directly with Visa, Mastercard and other payment partners where required.

You’ll work from our Singapore office five days a week.

What we're looking for

Essentials

• 7+ years of relevant experience in payments, acquiring, issuing, card networks, payment infrastructure or a related field, ideally within a global PSP, acquirer, scheme, issuer or fintech.

• Deep knowledge of card payment economics, particularly Visa and Mastercard interchange, scheme fees, transaction qualification and network rules.

• Strong ability to operationalise complex payment rules by translating fee schedules and network requirements into system logic, configurations and controls.

• Experience with payment cost systems and controls, including interchange tables, scheme fee logic, BIN-based rules, transaction attributes or similar payment configurations.

• Strong analytical and quantitative capabilities, including experience working with transaction-level data, economic modelling and reconciliation of expected versus actual payment costs.

• Strong commercial judgment, with the ability to connect detailed payment mechanics to pricing, product decisions and margin optimisation.

• Exceptional attention to detail and ownership, with the discipline required to manage complex rules where small errors can create meaningful financial impact at scale.

• Strong cross-functional execution, with the ability to work effectively across Product, Engineering, Finance, Data, Operations and external payment partners.

Preferred

• Experience expanding scheme economics expertise across local payment methods and broader payments cost bases.

• Experience building scalable payment cost infrastructure, automated controls, dashboards or advanced analytics.

• Experience working directly with Visa, Mastercard or other payment networks and partners.

You'll thrive here if

• You have experience at a fintech, payments company, or other highly regulated business.

• You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.

• You connect dots across functions and hold the big picture without losing grip on the details.

• You simplify complexity rather than hiding behind it.

• You say what you mean. You're direct, but you lead with respect.

Learn more about your team

Finance & Corporate Development helps Airwallex grow with control. We’re a trusted partner to the business, providing actionable insights on performance, supporting market and product expansion and helping to shape the future of our product. We ensure that Airwallex meets its financial reporting, tax and safeguarding obligations globally. We work with existing and prospective investors to raise capital and ensure it is deployed effectively.

This is a team for people who want to reimagine how the CFO office works. We’re looking for founder-like energy, high integrity and a passion for technology. You’ll thrive here if you enjoy working cross-functionally, think from first principles and can balance speed of execution with analytical precision.

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.