Fraud Manager

As a leading fintech innovator in South Africa, Ozow is seeking a dynamic Fraud Manager to spearhead its efforts in safeguarding its ecosystem against financial crime. This pivotal role is designed for an individual who can operate with both speed and precision, ensuring the integrity of transactions while maintaining a seamless experience for legitimate users. The Fraud Manager will be instrumental in shaping and executing Ozow's comprehensive fraud prevention and detection strategies across various payment methods, including Electronic Funds Transfers (EFTs), card payments, and emerging digital solutions.

About the role

The Fraud Manager will hold the critical responsibility of protecting Ozow, its extensive network of merchants, and ultimately, their customers from the impact of fraudulent activities and associated financial losses. This involves leading and nurturing a dedicated fraud team, cultivating an environment of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement. Through effective coaching, regular performance evaluations, and strategic development planning, the Fraud Manager will empower their team to excel.

A significant aspect of this position includes owning the team's resourcing and capacity planning. This encompasses managing shift schedules, addressing overtime needs, and ensuring adequate coverage for after-hours or weekend support, all balanced against the volume of alerts and investigations requiring attention. The Fraud Manager will serve as the primary internal expert on all fraud-related matters, guiding the development and implementation of fraud operations and controls. Furthermore, they will act as a key liaison with banking partners, engaging them on critical fraud-related issues.

The scope of responsibilities for the Fraud Manager is broad and deeply impactful. Key duties include:

• **Strategy and Operations:** Owning the design of fraud rules, recommending appropriate risk appetites, and managing relationships with key vendors within the fraud function.
• **Collaborative Mitigation:** Actively partnering with the fraud and risk teams of Ozow's merchants to exchange crucial intelligence on fraud typologies and coordinate joint mitigation efforts.
• **Threat Intelligence:** Continuously assessing emerging fraud threats, evolving trends, and new attack vectors. This includes defining and closely monitoring key risk indicators that inform the overall fraud risk appetite.
• **Rule Optimisation:** Driving the performance of fraud rules through rigorous back-testing, precise tuning, and the timely retirement of ineffective rules, all based on live catch rates and false positive results.
• **Incident Management:** Overseeing detailed investigations, conducting thorough root-cause analyses, and leading remediation efforts. This also involves spearheading incident response for fraud events across relevant internal teams.
• **Reporting and Compliance:** Producing actionable fraud reports for executive stakeholders, meticulously measuring key performance indicators such as fraud losses, false positive rates, capture rates, and operational efficiency. Ensuring strict adherence to all applicable regulatory requirements, payment scheme rules, and internal company policies.

What they're looking for

Ozow is seeking a candidate with a proven background in managing and developing high-performing teams within fraud, risk, financial crime, or operations environments. Experience with shift-based work or extended hours coverage is essential, demonstrating an understanding of the demands of a 24/7 operational landscape.

Candidates should possess demonstrable experience in designing and implementing effective fraud prevention, detection, and investigation controls, particularly within a high-growth business context. A strong track record of successfully managing fraud losses, implementing robust risk controls, and improving operational fraud performance metrics is a prerequisite. The ability to collaborate effectively across various departments, including Risk, Compliance, Legal, Commercial, Finance Operations (FinOps), Product, Engineering, and Data teams, to achieve fraud mitigation objectives is crucial.

Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, underpinned by a commitment to data-driven decision-making, will be key to success in this role.

In South Africa, a Fraud Manager role often comes with significant responsibility and a competitive salary, reflecting the critical nature of financial crime prevention. Such positions are typically found within established financial institutions, payment processors like Ozow, and growing fintech companies. Career progression can lead to senior risk management or operational leadership roles within the financial services sector.

• 3 to 5 years leading and developing high-performing teams in a fraud, risk, financial crime, or operations environment, including shift-based or extended-hours coverage.
• Proven experience designing and implementing fraud prevention, detection, and investigation controls in a high-growth environment.
• A track record managing fraud losses, risk controls, and operational fraud performance metrics.
• Experience partnering across Risk, Compliance, Legal, Commercial, FinOps, Product, Engineering, and Data to deliver fraud mitigation.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with data-driven decision-making.