Merchant Onboarding Specialist

About the role

A client in the banking sector, represented by Stratostaff East Africa, needs a Merchant Onboarding Specialist based at its Nairobi head office. The role ensures the timely end-to-end onboarding of new merchants onto the bank's payment platforms (POS and e-commerce), acting as the main link between Sales, Risk and the merchant to keep lead-to-live turnaround fast while meeting KYC and regulatory standards.

Key responsibilities

• Verify merchant KYC and KYB documentation, screen signatories against MATCH and VMSS, and maintain a digitized database of merchant contracts and documents
• Ensure merchants are assigned the correct Merchant Category Codes (MCC)
• Coordinate with vendors and Card Operations to create merchant IDs (MIDs) and terminal IDs (TIDs), configure devices, deliver API keys for e-commerce and link accounts to settlement accounts
• Train branch and sales staff on POS terminals, portals and e-commerce dashboards, provide hardware and consumables, and resolve Day 1 issues
• Track onboarding from application to live, report on turnaround time and closure rates, escalate bottlenecks and monitor POS stock

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance or a related field
• Minimum 2 years of experience in merchant acquiring, customer onboarding or banking operations
• Familiarity with KYC/AML regulatory requirements in a banking environment

Required skills

• Strong organization and project management skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication
• Ability to handle many applications at once
• Proficiency in CRM software and Microsoft Office Suite