Senior Risk & Fraud Analyst - Payments

Role Description

Our client is one of Canada's fastest-growing fintech platforms, transforming how consumers pay, save, and earn rewards. Founded in 2021, the company has scaled to over $100M USD in annual transaction volume and 200,000+ users across North America, supported by a proprietary, fully in-house technology stack. The platform partners with 500+ leading brands and recently expanded into the US market, with teams in Etobicoke, ON and San Jose, CA. The company is targeting 4x year-over-year GMV growth and is actively building out its financial product suite.

We are recruiting a Senior/Lead Risk Analyst, Payment Fraud on behalf of our client. This is a strategic, hands‑on role sitting at the intersection of fraud intelligence, data analytics, and product partnership. The successful candidate will be the primary fraud risk owner — responsible for designing and executing end‑to‑end fraud prevention strategies, investigating anomalous activity, and collaborating closely with engineering and product teams to build automated fraud controls. This role is ideal for a self‑driven analyst who can operate independently, speak the language of payment networks, and translate fraud patterns into scalable, data‑driven solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the full lifecycle of financial risk strategy: opportunity identification, design, testing, launch, and ongoing performance monitoring.
• Investigate and monitor fraudulent or anomalous transaction activity; isolate and quantify trends driving changes in fraud and chargeback patterns.
• Analyze internal and external data to produce authoritative root‑cause reports on fraudulent activities and payment anomalies.
• Partner with engineering and product teams to design and deploy automated fraud prevention solutions that balance growth with risk control.
• Serve as the primary liaison between the company and external payment processors and fraud vendors (e.g., Stripe, Visa, Mastercard); manage vendor relationships and ensure alignment on fraud and risk management.
• Build and maintain fraud detection models, user behaviour scoring systems, and transaction anomaly detection workflows.
• Integrate models into risk systems to enable automated, model‑driven fraud prevention at scale.

Requirements

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience, including at least 3 years in a fraud‑related role and at least 1 year in the payments industry.
• Hands‑on experience with payment fraud — specifically within card‑based payment networks (chargebacks, 3DS, Visa/Mastercard dispute workflows). Credit risk experience alone is not sufficient.
• Proven experience investigating fraudulent activities, including transaction reviews and fraud case analysis in multi‑currency, e‑commerce, or fintech environments.
• Strong data modelling skills (3+ years): feature engineering, model training, evaluation, and production deployment of fraud detection and anomaly detection models.
• Proficiency with ML frameworks: Python or R with Sklearn, XGBoost, LightGBM, or equivalent.
• SQL proficiency (must‑have) — able to independently query and analyze large datasets.
• Experience working with third‑party fraud vendors and payment processors; ability to communicate fluently in industry terminology.
• Strong problem‑solving instincts — ability to think like a fraudster and anticipate emerging attack vectors.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, Finance, or a related analytical field.
• Conversational Mandarin (Cantonese also acceptable) is strongly preferred; candidates with Chinese‑Canadian background encouraged to apply.

We Offer

• Competitive salary of CAD $150,000 – $200,000 based on experience.
• Comprehensive health benefits.
• Performance bonus.
• A high‑impact, solo‑ownership role with direct influence over the company's risk infrastructure.
• Fast‑paced startup environment with strong growth trajectory — $100M+ GMV and targeting 4x year‑over‑year growth.
• If you are a payment fraud specialist who thrives in a high‑ownership environment and wants to build a fraud prevention program from the ground up, we encourage you to apply.