Payment Fraud Manager

UCL is one of the world's leading universities, consistently ranked among the global top 10. With a community of more than 50,000 students and 16,000 staff from over 150 countries, we are committed to delivering world‑class education, research and innovation while providing an exceptional experience for everyone who studies and works here.

Our Finance Services team is responsible for the financial transactions that support the university's operations, including student fees, accounts payable, credit and collections, treasury operations, NHS billing and payroll. As the complexity and volume of digital payments continue to evolve, ensuring a secure, efficient and compliant payments landscape is more important than ever.

This is an exciting opportunity to join UCL at a time of ongoing transformation and play a key role in protecting the institution, our students, staff, suppliers and customers from financial crime and fraud risks.

As Payment Fraud Manager, you will be UCL's subject matter expert for payments, fraud prevention and anti‑money laundering (AML) activity. You will take ownership of the university's payment fraud framework, helping to protect a complex and high‑volume payments environment while ensuring compliance with relevant regulatory and legal obligations.

Working closely with colleagues across Finance Services, Student Recruitment, Procurement, Commercial Services and Technology teams, you will identify vulnerabilities, strengthen controls and implement improvements that reduce fraud exposure and enhance the payment experience. You will oversee fraud monitoring, investigate suspicious activity, manage AML processes and support sanctions screening and Politically Exposed Person (PEP) assessments.

The role offers a unique opportunity to influence the future of UCL's payments landscape. You will work closely with external payment providers, banking partners and technology suppliers to optimise performance, improve fraud prevention capabilities and support the introduction of new payment solutions. Through data analysis and reporting, you will provide insights to senior leaders on fraud trends, financial risks and opportunities for continuous improvement.

You will also build strong external networks across the higher education, banking and payments sectors, ensuring UCL remains informed about emerging threats, industry developments and best practice in fraud prevention and payment security.

You will be an experienced payments, fraud prevention or financial crime professional with a strong understanding of payment ecosystems, banking mechanisms and card scheme frameworks. Comfortable operating in a complex environment, you will combine technical expertise with a practical and proactive approach to identifying risks, solving problems and delivering improvements.

You will have experience managing fraud prevention activities, transaction monitoring and AML processes, with the ability to analyse large volumes of data and translate findings into meaningful actions and recommendations. Strong analytical skills are essential, along with experience using data and reporting tools to identify trends, measure performance and support decision‑making.

As a trusted specialist, you will be confident communicating complex technical concepts to a wide range of audiences and building effective relationships with stakeholders across different functions and levels of seniority. You will be equally comfortable working independently and collaboratively, balancing day‑to‑day operational oversight with longer‑term strategic improvements.

Most importantly, you will be curious, detail‑oriented and motivated by the opportunity to make a tangible impact. You will thrive in an environment where you can influence change, strengthen controls and help safeguard one of the world's leading universities against evolving fraud and financial crime risks.

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined…