Underwriter, Team Lead

Job title: Underwriter, Team Lead

Reports to: Manager, Underwriting

Department: Business Resource Group

Location: Remote 

Grade: 18

About Priority Commerce: 

Priority Commerce is a leading financial technology company on a mission to deliver a personalized, easy-to-adopt financial toolset that accelerates cash flow and optimizes working capital for businesses. Our vision is to eliminate the barriers to unlocking revenue - empowering businesses to grow faster and operate smarter.

We achieve this through the Priority Commerce Engine, an innovative platform that combines payables, acquiring, and banking and treasury solutions. This unified approach allows businesses to streamline financial operations, reduce unnecessary costs, and uncover new revenue opportunities.

At Priority Commerce, we're driven by results. We expect our people to be known for results - bringing expertise, momentum, and relentless focus to every challenge, helping our clients and each other thrive.

About the Role:

As an Underwriting Team Lead, you will serve as a senior individual contributor and subject-matter expert responsible for evaluating large, complex, and higher-risk merchant accounts while providing guidance and support to the broader underwriting team. You will exercise independent judgment in assessing complex or non-standard risk scenarios, interpreting underwriting requirements, determining appropriate risk strategies, and making sound decisions within delegated authority.

You will perform comprehensive financial, credit, and risk analysis across a variety of products and processing relationships, including merchants, payment facilitators, and marketplaces. You will evaluate risk exposure, structure appropriate approvals, and develop risk mitigation strategies, including reserves, ACH delays, and other approval conditions, while balancing business objectives with prudent risk management.

A key focus of the role will be developing the capabilities of the underwriting team by training new hires, supporting underwriters as they expand into additional products and higher-risk merchants, and serving as a resource for questions involving policies, procedures, Card Brand requirements, and risk decisions. You will work closely with underwriters to help them analyze challenging situations, identify potential risks, and develop sound independent judgment.

As a trusted subject-matter expert, you will serve as a key escalation point for underwriting questions and complex risk matters and will partner with management, Sales, Operations, Risk, and Compliance to resolve issues and promote consistent application of underwriting standards.

Responsibilities: 

• Underwrite and manage large, complex, and higher-risk merchant accounts, exercising independent judgment to evaluate financial, credit, processing, fraud, and operational risk and make sound risk-based decisions within delegated authority.

• Serve as a key escalation point and resource for underwriters by providing guidance on underwriting policies, procedures, Card Brand requirements, compliance matters, and complex or non-standard risk situations.

• Train and develop underwriters by onboarding new team members, supporting ongoing product and policy education, and helping underwriters expand their capabilities to evaluate higher-risk and more complex merchants.

• Determine and negotiate appropriate approval structures and risk mitigants, including reserves, ACH delays, and other controls, based on the specific risk exposure and organizational risk appetite.

• Serve as a subject-matter expert in credit underwriting, financial statement analysis, fraud detection, payments, and merchant risk, providing expert guidance to management and cross-functional partners on significant risk matters.

• Identify emerging risks, compliance concerns, and opportunities to improve underwriting practices, and contribute to the development and consistent application of policies, procedures, and risk-management processes.

• Serve as a subject-matter expert on underwriting fraud risk by helping underwriters identify suspicious trends, inconsistencies, potentially altered documentation, and other fraud indicators; providing guidance on appropriate verification and investigative steps; and leveraging internal tools and third-party resources to identify or rule out potential fraud.

What Success Looks Like:

Success in this role means being a trusted resource and subject-matter expert who helps the underwriting team consistently apply policies, procedures, Card Brand requirements, and risk standards across the organization's products and processing relationships.

• New underwriters are effectively trained and developed, while existing underwriters gain the knowledge and confidence needed to underwrite additional products and progressively more complex and higher-risk merchants.

• Underwriters receive timely, thoughtful guidance on questions, exceptions, policy interpretation, and risk concerns, with appropriate matters escalated and resolved efficiently.

• Large, complex, and higher-risk accounts are thoroughly evaluated and appropriately structured, with the Team Lead exercising independent judgment to make sound decisions and apply appropriate risk mitigants.

• The Team Lead maintains a deep understanding of the organization's products, how they function, applicable policies and procedures, and the associated financial, operational, fraud, and processing risks.

• The Team Lead is recognized as a trusted subject-matter expert and resource by Underwriting, Management, Sales, Operations, Risk, and Compliance and helps promote consistent, high-quality underwriting decisions across the organization.

• Underwriters demonstrate stronger and more consistent fraud detection capabilities, including recognizing suspicious documentation and behavioral patterns, knowing when additional verification is warranted, and appropriately using available tools, third-party resources, and escalation channels to identify or rule out potential fraud.

Candidate Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and experience, with 10 years of relevant experience in underwriting, credit, risk, payments, banking, or financial services.

• Deep knowledge of merchant acquiring, payment processing, credit underwriting, financial statement analysis, fraud detection, and merchant risk, with the ability to analyze complex financial and transactional information.

• Demonstrated ability to independently assess financial, credit, operational, fraud, and processing risk and make sound decisions involving complex or higher-risk accounts.

• Strong understanding of risk-mitigation tools, including reserves, ACH delays, and other approval conditions, and the ability to determine appropriate controls based on risk exposure.

• Strong knowledge of Card Brand requirements, underwriting policies, procedures, and applicable KYC/AML and risk-management standards, with the ability to explain and apply them to complex situations.

• Exceptional communication, problem-solving, training, and decision-making skills, with the ability to educate others, handle escalations, explain complex concepts clearly, and serve as a trusted resource to the underwriting team and cross-functional partners.

• Advanced analytical and data-driven decision-making skills, including proficiency with underwriting and risk-management systems and the ability to identify trends, inconsistencies, and emerging risks.

• Demonstrated expertise in fraud detection and prevention, including experience analyzing fraud trends and transactional data, identifying potentially altered or suspicious documentation, developing verification strategies, and using fraud tools, investigative resources, and third-party data to identify or rule out fraudulent activity.

• Excellent management, communication, interpersonal, organizational and leadership skills. 

• Ability to communicate effectively both written and verbal.