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Pliant is a modular B2B payments platform combining commercial card issuing, payment accounts, FX, and spend management. The company serves 5,000+ businesses and 40+ partners across Europe and the United States, operating under its own European e-money license and with licensed partners in the UK and US.
As Senior Manager Operational Risk, you will own the design and operation of the operational risk framework for the UK entity, ensuring it meets Pliant's risk appetite and FCA expectations for a card-issuing e-money business. This is a hybrid role based in the UK, with office access available in London.
Key responsibilities include:
**Operational Risk Framework & Governance:** Maintain and improve the operational risk framework (risk appetite, risk taxonomy, policies, RCSA, KRIs, loss event and near-miss data, scenario analysis). Ensure governance and controls meet Pliant's minimum standards, FCA requirements on systems and controls (SYSC), and e-money and payment services conduct and prudential requirements. Provide regular, decision-oriented risk reporting to UK management, the UK Board, and the Group Risk Committee. Advise on operational risk implications of new products, partners, markets, and material changes.
**Safeguarding & Core E-Money/Payments Processes:** Oversee operational risk in safeguarding customer funds, including reconciliations, account structure, third-party safeguarding providers, breaks and escalation. Assess end-to-end risks across the card programme (issuing, authorisation, clearing and settlement, chargebacks, fraud, scheme rule compliance). Challenge the First Line on process, control, and capacity risks as the business scales.
**Incident Management & Regulatory Reporting:** Own the incident management framework for operational and ICT/security incidents, including classification, escalation, root cause analysis, and remediation tracking. Ensure major operational and security incidents are assessed and reported to the FCA within required timelines (PSRs 2017). Run post-incident reviews and feed lessons learned back into the control framework.
**Operational Resilience:** Lead the operational resilience programme under SYSC 15A, identifying Important Business Services, setting and testing impact tolerances, running scenario testing, mapping dependencies, and maintaining self-assessment. Oversee business continuity, disaster recovery, and exit/wind-down planning.
**Outsourcing & Third-Party Risk:** Own the third-party and outsourcing risk framework in line with FCA requirements (SYSC 8), including intra-group outsourcing to Pliant GmbH. Run due diligence and ongoing monitoring of critical vendors. Prepare and maintain material outsourcing notifications to the FCA.
**Regulatory Engagement & Assurance:** Act as the day-to-day contact for the FCA on operational risk topics. Support regulatory reviews, audits, and certification audits. Support the annual review of the risk framework and regulatory returns.
**Culture & Training:** Embed a strong risk culture and deliver training on incident reporting, operational resilience, and risk ownership.
**Requirements:**
- Degree in Risk Management, Finance, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
- 5+ years in operational risk in payments, e-money, banking, or fintech, ideally in an FCA-regulated EMI or PI
- Solid knowledge of the UK regulatory framework for e-money and payments: EMRs, PSRs 2017, SYSC, operational resilience, safeguarding, and outsourcing requirements
- Hands-on experience with RCSA, KRIs, incident management, and resilience testing
- Ability to challenge the First Line constructively and report clearly to senior management and regulators
- Experience working with distributed teams across the UK and Germany
**Nice to have:**
- CRISC, CISM, ISO 22301, or ISO 27001 Lead Implementer/Auditor certifications
- Experience with card scheme (Visa/Mastercard) rules and PCI DSS
- Familiarity with DORA (relevant for EU group entities)
- German or another European language
