Objective
SENIOR RISK EXECUTIVE – PAYMENT OPERATIONS
A multi-faceted Risk and Fraud Professional with a stable, progressive and accomplished career combining risk management and merchant relations experience. A respected leader who possesses skills in all aspects of loss mitigation, risk, fraud and credit analysis. An excellent communicator with extensive experience in risk management presentations and a demonstrated background in communicating with regulatory bodies, financial institutions and integral partners. Extensive experience with virtually all payments processing technologies, platforms, and reporting environments. Thought leader, frequent speaker, and contributor to publications related to the payments ecosystem.
biography
Analytics expert passionate about numbers, algorithms and forecasting models. Risk mitigator and strategist eliminating competitive, regulatory and technological threats to capital and earnings. Avid surfer and snowboarder who builds strong teams facilitating impactful processes and procedures.
A strategic and effective leader in risk management, Jacob Bennett brings more than 19 years of bankcard industry experience. Bennett maintains low loss ratios and drives the company to reach significant annual growth. With a thorough understanding and mastery of regulatory compliance and the payments processing landscape, Bennett helps shape overall long-term growth plans, while promoting alignment with business goals.
A recognized payments professional driven by plans to move the industry forward, Bennett is an ETA Certified Payments Professional™ and an active member of the Merchant Acquirer’s Committee (MAC) and the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) Professional Development Committee. In 2018, Bennett was recognized as a game-changer in digital payments and inducted into ETA’s Forty Under 40 inaugural class.
Experience
LUQRA, CHIEF RISK OFFICER
May 2024 - Present
SIGNATURE CARD SERVICES, SVP PROCESSING OPERATIONS
October 2018 - April 2024
National merchants association, chief risk officer
November 2014 - September 2018
As CRO at National Merchants Association, an industry leading merchant services provider and advocacy group processing electronic payments for a diverse range of businesses world wide, I developed and built a highly efficient loss mitigation department for the company. I helped grow our gross processing volume by over 1000% and revenue by over 500%. Most importantly, policies and procedures implemented helped the company experience that explosive growth while maintaining loss ratios well below industry benchmarks.
Built departmental architecture for all aspects related to risk including asset recovery, compliance, underwriting, fraud investigation, and quality control
Currently oversee a team for 50+ including Manager, Director and VP level staff
Developed a proprietary exception, monitoring and reporting platform utilizing unique trending data and risk exposure models to help identify cross border fraud and potential fraud events
Maintain policies that address all aspects of state, federal, and card brand mandated regulations including suspicious activity reporting, anti-money laundering prevention, etc.
Oversaw implementation, integration and scaling of several individual BINs and processing relationships
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lucrazon ecommerce, director of risk management
August 2008 - October 2014
As Director of Risk Management, I oversaw an Operations team of 20 people including 3 department managers that handled every aspect of underwriting, risk management, charge back processing, collections, customer service, deployment, data entry, rate analysis and agent relations.
As a fully integrated Ecommerce solution, Lucrazon provided not only merchant services but web design tools, web hosting, shopping cart solutions and virtual gateway solutions. Under my leadership, we boarded over 6,000 new merchant accounts in under 4 months through our affiliate agent program.
My primary responsibilities revolved around managing underwriting and risk management staff, including training and assisting those individuals in successfully mitigating risk on current and prospective merchant accounts. Additional focus included:
Creating, adjusting, and maintaining various analytical metrics tracking and monitoring merchant performance and transaction activity in order to target and isolate fraudulent trends.
Developing and utilizing a risk exposure calculation formula for forecasting potential losses for a given merchant based on volumes, charge back and refund ratios, industry averages, future delivery etc.
Utilizing various financial analysis models to determine solvency and expected performance for prospective merchants.
Developing proprietary rate analysis tools for use in proposal generation and new account acquisition
In addition to establishing and laying out all steps and policies related to underwriting, I was responsible for developing step by step guidelines for all ongoing fraud monitoring and risk evaluation. This included developing and defining all steps related to exception monitoring, risk review, and reporting. All policy development involved working hand in hand with IT and development teams to establish and perfect all systems used in connection to loss prevention including a customized underwriting and decision interface, a robust exception monitoring risk queue system and detailed risk reporting interface.
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national merchant center, senior risk analyst
May 2007 - July 2008
While performing various duties as a Risk Analyst with National Merchant Center, the fast paced nature of both the industry itself, as well as the company environment, made it necessary to multi task and utilize numerous avenues in accomplishing goals.
As a Risk Analyst with National Merchant Center, a third party credit card processor and merchant services provider, my primary responsibilities included risk investigation and financial evaluation. Using internal risk monitoring systems as well as electronic tools for data organization and analysis, I would identify and address potential financial risk to the company posed by certain merchant’s and their processing. Certain instances required the analysis of corporations and their financial health for which I would review credit profiles, balance sheets, and profit and loss statements. This analysis would allow me to calculate potential financial risk to which we were exposed.
I was also integral in certain aspects of the accounting which including reconciling and requesting the moving of funds between operational accounts and those of our clients.
All of these responsibilities revolved around the primary goal of managing and reducing the financial risk that our company was exposed to while maintaining profitable relationships with both clients and agents.
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transfirst, risk analyst
November 2006 - May 2007
As a Risk Analyst with TransFirst LLC, a merchant services provider, I performed a wide range of tasks including monitoring, accounting, and analysis of various financial aspects of both clients and the corporation. My primary responsibilities involved assessing and monitoring the financial risk involved with taking on and processing for new merchants as clients. In addition to risk related analysis, I was responsible for aspects of accounting involving the money moves between our banks and those of our clients.
Whether performing risk evaluation or accounting analysis, all of my tasks required financial knowledge, acuity with various forms of electronic media, and attention to detail in order to perform them quickly, accurately, and completely.
Education
university of california irvine, irvine, ca
B.S. ECONOMICS
Graduated June 2006
Awards
certifications
memberships
electronic transactions association
certified payments professional
forty under 40
professional development committee
risk, fraud & security committee