Financial Services Operations Partner

Our mission

We're making Africa the first cashless continent.

In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason-the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.

We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across 9 countries and are growing fast.

Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in...

How you'll help us achieve it

You'll be the single point of ownership that keeps Wave's Financial Services products running smoothly for customers, partners, and internal teams. As we launch new products with external partners, the day-to-day operational work currently sits scattered across multiple teams and things fall through the cracks. You'll be the one who connects everything: one smart, hungry, diligent, and highly organized person who can see the whole picture and make sure nothing gets dropped.

Through a customer-first and partner savvy mindset, you'll build quality relationships across Customer Services, Finance, Biz Dev, Product, Risk, and our external partners, and bring the specialist knowledge that non-standard products like merchant lending and insurance demand.

On a day to day, you will champion operational excellence across our Financial Services portfolio, making sure products operate effectively for customers, partners deliver on what they committed to, and the business captures the revenue it has earned.

Your Financial Services Ops priorities include:

You will coordinate operational financial services tasks in the market and across teams to ensure products operate effectively for customers and with partners.

• Act as the connective tissue across the teams that touch each product, so issues are owned end to end rather than handed around.
• Bring and grow specialist knowledge of non standard products (merchant cash advance, insurance, lending etc.) 
• Move beyond case by case firefighting to spot patterns, recognizing when many customers share one issue that needs a structural fix.
• Use data to surface risks early, particularly on lending products, flagging customers for collections or merchants for engagement before problems grow.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

In-scope products: Support the Financial Services Product range, including; Merchant Cash Advances, Insurances, and products including consumer lending and savings.

Partner relationship management - serves as the operational point of contact for partners: manage day to day coordination, triage new feature requests, and ensure partners do what they are committed to.

• Issue triage and escalation - be the point of escalation for issues needing triage. Resolve directly where you can, identify the internal team that can resolve where you can't, or flag to the partner via pre-established processes. Track and escalate frequent issues so recurring problems get a structural solution, not a repeated patch.
• SLA monitoring - monitor SLAs as agreed with partners and report where performance is off-track so issues can be raised with partners.
• Payments, invoicing & revenue reconciliation - monitor and validate partner payments and invoicing (e.g. invoicing partners, paying out profit shares, confirming partner banks funds their account). Align with Finance to ensure revenue share is correct and the numbers reconcile.

Secondary responsibilities:

• General project management support for launching new products and partners in the financial services portfolio.

Key details

• Location: You'll work from our office in Senegal and may travel to field locations.
• Work authorization in Senegal required.
• Our salaries are competitive and calculated using a transparent formula. We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses to strong performers who have been with the company for more than 6 months
• We pay 100% of your health care insurance premium cost for yourself and your dependents
• We support working parents - we offer generous parental leave policies (26 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers) and subsidized childcare when you return to work
• We help you live your fullest life now! We subsidize gym memberships, fitness classes, and workout equipment
• Airtime reimbursement
• Free food and a beautiful office space

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience in operations, ideally in financial services, fintech, payments, or a partner facing an operational role.
• Proven ability to coordinate across multiple teams and external partners without formal authority over them.
• Comfort working with data to spot trends, monitor performance, and drive action.
• Strong understanding of, or fast ability to learn, non standard financial products (lending, insurance, cash advance).
• You are neurotic and obsess over all the tiny details and ask clarifying questions.
• Curiosity and proactively resolving or flagging problems.

You might be a good fit if you

• Are exceptionally organized - you keep track of many moving parts across products, partners, and teams, and nothing slips.
• Demonstrate analytical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making - you see where an issue belongs, route it correctly, and spot the patterns behind individual cases.
• Have solid interpersonal and communication skills, both verbal and written - you write well, keep detailed notes, and earn the trust of partners and internal stakeholders alike.
• Can operate as a "quarterback" - connecting Customer Service, Finance, Biz Dev, Risk, Partner Ops, and merchant Ops around a shared outcome.
• Are flexible and can manage multiple, complex issues and prioritize ruthlessly in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment where products are new and playbooks don't yet exist.
• Come from a "We" first approach vs an "I" mindset, building cohesion across teams

Our team

• We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Uganda, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon plus remote team members spread across the world.
• We're deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
• We foster autonomy for our employees. You'll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
• We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
• We are on  Y Combinator's top companies by revenue.

How to apply

Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.

We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.

Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.