Head of Acquiring
The Head of Acquiring is responsible for how the company accepts payments: choosing acquiring banks and PSPs, setting up integrations and routing, improving conversion and authorization rates, and limiting losses from chargebacks.
What a Head of Acquiring does
The Head of Acquiring leads how the company collects money from customers. Acquiring covers contracts with acquiring banks and payment service providers (PSPs), connecting payment methods, routing transactions, and handling authorizations and declined payments. In fintech and payment services, this role directly determines how much revenue reaches the business and how reliably payments work.
Companies in high-risk verticals such as fintech, payments, crypto, and e-commerce face bank and PSP declines more often, and regulatory and payment scheme rules are tighter. That is why a Head of Acquiring is needed to build a resilient payment architecture: multiple acquirers, backup routes, chargeback controls, and compliance with KYC and monitoring requirements. The role connects bank negotiations, payment engineering, and work with finance and the risk team.
In the org structure, this role usually reports to the CEO, CFO, or COO, or, in larger companies, to the head of the payments division. The Head of Acquiring manages a team of acquiring managers, payment analysts, and sometimes integration engineers. They also agree the budget for fees and reserves with finance and, together with the risk team, decide which merchants and traffic can be accepted.
Responsibilities
- Set the acquiring strategy: which acquiring banks, PSPs, and payment methods to use in each country and vertical
- Negotiate with banks and PSPs on terms, fees, limits, reserves, and SLAs
- Manage the onboarding of new acquirers and payment methods, including cards, local methods, and alternative payments
- Monitor payment conversion: approval rates, declines, and decline reasons
- Configure transaction routing and fallback processes between acquirers
- Reduce chargebacks and refunds together with support and risk teams
- Agree payment acceptance rules, limits, and merchant monitoring with the risk team and compliance
- Plan and control the budget for fees, reserves, and payment infrastructure costs
- Lead the acquiring team: set goals, run reviews, and develop team members
- Work with product and engineering on integrations, checkout requirements, and incident resolution
Skills
- Understanding of card payment flows: issuer, acquirer, card scheme, processing
- Negotiating with banks and PSPs on both commercial terms and technical requirements
- Analytical thinking: working with data on authorizations, declines, and chargebacks
- Knowledge of regulator and card scheme requirements for payment acceptance and anti-fraud
- Managing a team and prioritizing tasks across business, product, and risk
- Risk management: balancing conversion growth against fraud losses
- Explaining complex payment processes to finance leadership and partners
- Understanding payment unit economics: fees, rates, reserves, and their impact on margin
Tools
- PSP and acquirer management systems (merchant portals, API dashboards)
- Payment processing platforms and payment orchestrators
- SQL and BI tools for transaction analysis (for example, Metabase, Looker, Power BI)
- Chargeback and dispute management systems
- Anti-fraud systems and transaction scoring
- Jira or a similar task tracker for managing incidents and integrations
How performance is measured
- Approval rate by channel and acquirer
- Chargeback rate as a share of transactions and trends by merchant
- Cost of acceptance: acquirer and PSP fees as a percentage of turnover
- Payment infrastructure uptime and recovery time after incidents
- Share of traffic covered by backup routes
- Fraud and refund losses as a percentage of turnover
By vertical
FinTech
In fintech, the Head of Acquiring is responsible for accepting payments for account top-ups, transfers, and withdrawals. Key priorities include KYC checks at the payment level, working with partner banks on licensing requirements, and balancing conversion against anti-fraud controls.
Levels
Head of / Director
Heads of and Directors are responsible for the entire payment function: strategy, budget, relationships with banks and PSPs, and final decisions on risk and fees. Their decisions affect the whole business, so the role includes responsibility for the team, regulatory relationships, and reserve management.
How to get there
People usually move into acquiring from roles such as payment analyst, PSP account manager, chargeback specialist, or risk analyst. Experience in a bank, a processor, a payment company, or a team with high card transaction volumes is useful. A habit of working with numbers and understanding how payment flows work is essential.
To prepare, learn the card payment flow, the roles of acquirer and issuer, the main decline types, and card scheme rules. It helps to master SQL, learn to read authorization and chargeback reports, and understand basic KYC and AML requirements. Practice in provider negotiations and experience handling incidents will help you grow faster.
Career growth usually goes through a Head of Acquiring or senior acquiring manager position, then into managing the payments function with responsibility for the team and budget. Moving up to a Head-level role requires experience resolving complex incidents, negotiating with banks, and working as an equal with regulators and finance.
Next steps: Head of Payments, Director of Payments, Chief Payments Officer (CPO), VP Finance or COO at a payment company, Head of Risk (payments)
FAQ
How is a Head of Acquiring different from an acquiring manager?
An acquiring manager usually works with specific banks and PSPs and tracks integrations and incidents. The Head of Acquiring is responsible for the strategy of the entire payment architecture, the budget for fees and reserves, the team, and final decisions on risk and routing.
Is a technical degree required for this role?
There is usually no direct requirement, but understanding APIs, integrations, and transaction logic is very important. Without it, it is hard to discuss routing, fallback, and decline causes with engineering. Many people come from finance or banking products and build their technical knowledge on the job.
What determines income in this role?
Income depends on company size and payment turnover, the complexity of the payment architecture, the vertical, and the level of responsibility for profit. Experience in bank negotiations, the number of countries and payment methods managed, and results on conversion and losses also matter.
Why is this role especially important in high-risk verticals?
Banks and PSPs decline or restrict acceptance more often in these verticals, and chargebacks and fraud are more costly. A business needs someone who keeps access to acquiring, builds backup routes, and aligns rules with risk and compliance.
Which tools should I know when starting out?
It is important to understand PSP merchant portals, the basics of SQL and BI for transaction analysis, and chargeback and dispute processes. Knowledge of anti-fraud systems and task trackers helps you join the team's work faster.
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