Payments Risk & Controls Expert

Mercor is collaborating with a leading AI research initiative focused on evaluating risk and control assessments across payments operations. We are seeking experienced payments risk and operational risk professionals to author and review structured risk/control rubrics against real-world banking standards. This project offers a unique opportunity to apply senior-level risk judgment to improve the reliability of frontier AI systems. This is a time-sensitive, project-based engagement with near-term availability preferred.

Key Responsibilities

• Review and author payments risk and control assessments across payment capture and validation, authorization, tracking, funds control, smart routing, FX conversion, netting, prioritization, returns, and tokenization

• Evaluate inherent risk, residual risk, and control effectiveness using standard impact-and-likelihood frameworks

• Map risks to controls and identify control gaps or elevated vulnerabilities

• Identify failure modes in payments capabilities (system failures, stale data, bypassed authorization, missed cut-offs, misconfigured routing/netting/funds controls)

• Provide structured evaluations with clear written justifications grounded in operational risk and RCSA standards

Ideal Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in payments risk assessment, bank operational risk, risk and control self-assessment (RCSA), issue management, risk and controls, compliance risk assessment, or banking risk advisory

• Experience in titles such as VP / AVP Operational Risk Management, RCSA Program Manager / Lead, Business Risk & Control Officer, Payments Risk & Controls Manager, Payments Operations / Treasury Services Risk Manager, or Compliance Risk Assessment Manager

• Background at a top-tier bank strongly preferred (e.g., JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BNY, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley)

• Risk-control advisory experience at a leading consulting firm also considered (e.g., KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, EY, Accenture financial-services risk advisory)

• Comfort with standard payments risk lenses: execution and accuracy, authorization and fraud, data integrity, timeliness and cut-offs, client impact, and regulatory/compliance impact

• Strong command of inherent risk scoring drivers — transaction value and volume, time sensitivity, geographic footprint, client harm, regulatory and operational impact, reputational impact, and historical signals (operational risk events, KRIs, issues, limits, external events)

• Has personally created or reviewed risk/control assessments

• Can articulate the difference between inherent risk, residual/control effectiveness, issue severity, and remediation priority

• Excellent analytical and written communication skills

• Comfortable working independently with digital tools