Analytics Lead

About Us

JOB DESCRIPTION

Network International is the largest Financial Technology company in Middle East and Africa. Payments is our core business where we provide services in more than 50 countries – UAE, Jordan, South Africa, Egypt are some of our key markets. Apart from payments, we provide services on Data and Insights, Lending, Insurance, Risk Solutions, etc. Our core customers are businesses at every scale and segment, though recently we are growing in direct to consumer card segment as well.

Our EVP's

At Network International, we always stay ahead. . In the fast-paced world of financial services, we thrive on innovation, agility, and purposeful collaboration. We invest first in our people, empowering you to make bold decisions, learn fast, and grow your expertise alongside industry leaders. Here, solving complex problems means more than using cutting-edge technology; it’s about creating meaningful value for our customers, together. We foster a culture where trust, accountability, and achievement go hand in hand—because success isn’t just a goal; it’s how we work, every day, as one team.

About The Role

The Auth Optimiser Analyst is a new role created to productise NI's authorization rate improvement capability and deliver it as a structured managed service. The successful candidate will own the end-to-end delivery of this service: from deep-dive decline analytics, through integration and issuer engagement, to proving revenue recovery in front of merchant C-suites.

Responsibilities

• Decline Analytics & Monitoring
• Pull and analyse daily and weekly decline data by code, MID, scheme, card type and time-of-day
• Classify all declines: issuer-side / acquirer-side / config / merchant data / 3DS failures
• Build and maintain an auth rate monitoring dashboard for the Auth Optimiser merchant portfolio
• Identify structural decline patterns versus one-off spikes and determine root cause
• Produce the Auth Rate Analysis Pack for every enterprise QBR — trends, benchmarks, top 10 decline codes, improvement plan
• Model revenue recovery: before/after auth rate comparisons and incremental TPV calculations
• Integration & Configuration Fixes
• Act as the primary interface between the analytics function and the Integration / Ecom Ops team
• Triage decline root causes that are config, data quality, tokenisation or 3DS-related
• Track all fix actions with owners and deadlines — hold the integration team accountable to agreed SLAs
• Validate improvements through post-fix data analysis before declaring resolution
• Escalate unresolved blockers to the integration lead — no action left without a status
• Issuer Engagement
• Identify the issuers generating the highest rates of false-positive declines across the merchant portfolio
• Prepare structured decline evidence packs for issuer engagement — data narrative, volume, trend, comparison to UAE benchmark
• Attend and lead the data portion of issuer engagement calls alongside the RM or Sales Director
• Track issuer commitments from each engagement and follow up until resolved
• Feed issuer outcomes and rule changes back into the merchant auth rate model
• Merchant & RM Support
• Brief RMs ahead of every QBR with the full auth rate picture and recommended talking points
• Attend QBRs with top-tier merchants to present the auth rate analysis and improvement plan directly
• Support RMs in price negotiation conversations by demonstrating the revenue value of NI's auth rate advantage
• Onboard new Auth Optimiser merchant engagements and manage the structured 90-day improvement programme
• Product & Process Development
• Own the Auth Optimiser SOP and keep it current as the service scales
• Feed insights on recurring decline patterns into the NI product roadmap (HPP, tokenisation, 3DS, wallet acceptance)
• Contribute to the commercial model for Auth Optimiser — success fee calculations, pricing proposals, case studies
• Build a library of merchant success stories and before/after evidence for use in sales processes
  
  

Essential

QUALIFICATIONS

• 3–6 years of experience in payments, fintech or financial services in an analytics, operations or product role
• Strong understanding of card payment authorization flows: how transactions route, why they decline, the role of issuers and acquirers
• Proven experience with payments data analysis — comfort working with large decline datasets, building trend analysis and identifying root causes
• Experience working with or alongside relationship management or account management teams
• Strong written and verbal communication skills — able to present complex data to merchant CFOs and CTOs clearly
• Proficiency in Excel / data tools (SQL, Python or BI tools such as Tableau or Power BI are advantageous)
• Highly organised with strong project management skills — able to track multiple merchant engagements simultaneously
  
  

Desirable

• Direct experience with ecommerce payment gateways (NGO, MPGS, Adyen, Stripe, Checkout.com or similar)
• Experience in an acquiring or issuing processing environment
• Familiarity with Visa and Mastercard decline code frameworks and dispute resolution processes
• Experience engaging directly with issuing banks on operational payment issues
• Knowledge of 3DS, tokenisation and card scheme compliance requirements
• Arabic language skills are an advantage but not required
  
  

Skills & Competencies

Competency What we are looking for

Analytical Thinking Able to diagnose payment failure patterns from raw data, identify root causes and translate findings into actionable recommendations

Commercial Acumen Understands how authorization rate improvements translate to merchant revenue and NI's commercial position

Stakeholder Management Credible with merchant C-suite, bank contacts and internal teams simultaneously — adapts communication style accordingly

Drive for Results Self-starter who tracks actions relentlessly and does not accept stale open items

Attention to Detail Payments data requires precision — errors in decline analysis or revenue calculations undermine merchant trust

Collaborative Working Works effectively across RM, Integration Ops, FMU and Product teams without owning formal authority over any of them

Continuous Improvement Proactively identifies patterns and feeds them into product and process development, not just resolves individual cases

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