Payments Operations Lead

Hello. We’re Teya.

Teya was founded on a simple belief: local businesses deserve better.

They are the cafés, restaurants, salons, shops and entrepreneurs that bring character to our high streets, create jobs and keep communities moving. Yet for too long, financial services has made life harder for them - with clunky tools, poor support and complexity that gets in the way of running a business.

Teya exists to change that.

We’re building a financial platform for local businesses across Europe - one built around simple tools, thoughtful design and real human support. Our Members rely on us to help them run their business with confidence, and that responsibility shapes the way we work.

We move fast. We care about quality. We stay close to the detail. And we believe great performance and genuine hospitality should go hand in hand.

If you want to build meaningful products, solve real problems and make a genuine difference for local businesses, we’d love to hear from you

The role

The Payments Operations Lead brings Teya’s payments and settlement operations together into one reliable, well-controlled capability.

Today the operational work behind our outbound payments and merchant settlements is spread across many people and teams, and too much of it falls on our product teams, taking time away from building. This role changes that. You’ll own the day-to-day running of payments and settlements, standardise and document the core processes, put the right controls around them, and handle the steady stream of ad hoc issues that come with a fast-growing payments business.

It’s a hands-on, execution-focused role. You’ll be the first person in the capability, landing in a messy environment, bringing order to it and getting things done, with scope to add one or two people as it grows. You’ll work closely with Payments, Product, Finance, Compliance and Customer Operations, and with our banking and payment partners.

What’s in scope

• Outbound payments across SEPA, Faster Payments and SWIFT.

• Merchant settlements and payouts, including rejected and returned settlements.

• Reconciliation and the investigation and clearing of breaks.

• Returns, recalls and misdirected payments.

• Returning withheld and residual funds to merchants after they leave Teya.

• Banking and payment partner relationships, including the service levels we agree with them.

• Funding and liquidity across our operational accounts, working with Treasury.

• Testing and running our payment rails, working with our payment specialists.

What you’ll do

• Take ownership of payments and settlement operations that currently sit across multiple teams, and centralise them into a single, clearly owned capability.

• Map how each process runs today, then standardise, document and operate it, with runbooks that do not rely on product team time.

• Run the day-to-day execution of payments and settlements, making sure money goes out accurately and on time.

• Own the operational relationship with our banking and payment partners: agree service levels, track performance against them, and escalate and resolve issues when partners fall short.

• Work with Treasury to forecast and manage funding and liquidity across our accounts, so payments and settlements are never held up by an unfunded account.

• Work with our payment specialists to test and run our payment rails, including new rails, partner changes and scheme updates, before and after they go live.

• Put the right controls in place and keep them working: maker-checker and approval limits, reconciliation, safeguarding, sanctions screening and Confirmation of Payee on outbound payments, and handling of misdirected and fraudulent payments, working with Finance and Compliance.

• Own incident handling for payment and settlement failures, and work with Operational Resilience on continuity plans, since payments are among our most important services.

• Be the go-to person for ad hoc and unexpected payment issues: investigate, resolve, and turn recurring problems into repeatable processes.

• Use AI and automation by default, and build agents for repeatable work such as reconciliation and exception triage, partnering with Product and Engineering where you need them.

• Cut the number of merchants who need to contact Customer Relations about a payment, by fixing root causes and telling merchants what is happening through the Teya app and portal before they ask.

• Track and report operational performance weekly, so issues are caught early and fixed at the root.

• Shape how the capability grows as Teya scales.

What success looks like

In your first six months

• Every payment and settlement process has one owner and a documented runbook.

• Weekly reporting in place on on-time payments, open breaks and how long they have been open.

• Product teams no longer carry day-to-day payment operations.

• Control gaps identified, with an agreed plan to close them.

• Service levels agreed and tracked with each key banking and payment partner, and a funding and liquidity routine running with Treasury.

By the end of your first year

• Key controls tested and evidenced, and open breaks within agreed ageing limits.

• A measurable cut in product team hours spent on payment operations.

• Fewer Customer Relations contacts about payments and settlements.

• The first automated or agent-led processes live.

• No payments or settlements delayed by an unfunded account, and partner performance reviewed against service levels every month.

What you’ll bring

• Hands-on payments operations experience, including payment schemes such as SEPA, Faster Payments and SWIFT, managing bank and payment partners against service levels, and reconciliation.

• Experience working with Treasury or Finance on funding and liquidity for operational accounts.

• Experience as the person getting things done in an operations role: owning processes, fixing problems and delivering outcomes.

• Experience in a fast-moving or messy operational environment, such as a start-up or scale-up, where you were thrown in at the deep end and brought structure to it.

• A track record of standardising processes while still handling a high volume of ad hoc work.

• A controls mindset: you understand why payment controls, safeguarding and sanctions screening matter, and how to run them without slowing everything down.

• Comfortable with data and spreadsheets, and someone who reaches for automation and AI tools to remove manual effort.

• Comfortable with ambiguity: you don’t need everything defined to make progress.

• Highly organised, with strong attention to detail and a sense of ownership.

• Strong stakeholder management across product, finance, compliance and operations teams.

• A clear, confident communicator, highly motivated and able to work independently.

  Nice to have

• Experience at an e-money institution, payment institution or bank.

• Merchant settlement operations in card acquiring.

• Experience with reconciliation tools or building payment automation.

• Experience testing or launching a new payment rail or banking partner.

The Perks

• Physical and mental health support through our partnership with GymPass giving free access to over 1,500 gyms in the UK, 1-1 therapy, meditation sessions, digital fitness, and nutrition apps

• Our company offers extended and improved maternity and paternity leave choices, giving employees more flexibility and support

• Cycle-to-Work Scheme

• Health and Life Insurance

• Pension Scheme

• 25 days of Annual Leave (+ Bank Holidays)

• Office snacks every day

• Friendly, comfortable, and informal office environment in Central London

Teya is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background can thrive and do their best work. We believe that a diverse team leads to better ideas, stronger outcomes, and a more supportive workplace for all.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process whether for interviews, assessments, or other parts of the application—we encourage you to let us know. We are committed to ensuring that every candidate has a fair and accessible experience with us.