Fraud Systems Lead

SUMMARY:

Our client is a South African fintech focused on digital payments. They need a senior technical, hands-on Fraud Systems Lead to design, build and maintain the systems that detect and prevent fraud across their payment platform. This role translates fraud strategy into working rules, models, data pipelines and controls, and reports to the CTO wit...

POSITION INFO:
Our client is a South African fintech focused on digital payments. They need a senior technical, hands-on Fraud Systems Lead to design, build and maintain the systems that detect and prevent fraud across their payment platform. This role translates fraud strategy into working rules, models, data pipelines and controls, and reports to the CTO within the technology team. Key Responsibilities Design, build and maintain real-time transaction monitoring and fraud detection across onboarding, wallet, card and transfer journeys. Build and manage rules and decision engines, including rule logic, thresholds, scoring and case-routing. Integrate fraud controls into the payment platform and APIs without unnecessary friction for legitimate customers. Evaluate, implement and configure third-party fraud tools and vendors such as Actimize, Visa Risk Manager, FICO Falcon, SAS or Feedzai. Build data pipelines and feature sets that feed fraud rules and models. Work with data science to develop, deploy and monitor machine learning fraud models. Analyse transaction and case data to identify new fraud patterns and translate them into controls. Tune rules and models to reduce fraud losses and false positives, and track performance against clear metrics. Provide the fraud team with tools, alerts, dashboards and reporting to work cases efficiently. Respond quickly to emerging fraud attacks with new or adjusted controls; document all changes and maintain access management. Requirements 5+ years in a technical role, including at least 3 years building or running fraud or transaction monitoring systems. Hands-on experience with fraud platforms (Actimize, Visa Risk Manager, FICO Falcon, SAS, Feedzai) or in-house rules engines. Strong SQL and data skills; Python or a similar language is advantageous. Experience with APIs, real-time or event-driven systems, and cloud data platforms. Degree in computer science, engineering, data science, information systems or a related field. Understanding of fraud types in digital payments: account takeover, social engineering, mule accounts, synthetic identity and card fraud. Digital banking, payments or fintech background. Working knowledge of AML and South African financial crime requirements is advantageous.