Visa is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating more than 215 billion payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories each year. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive.

When you join Visa, you join a culture of purpose and belonging – where your growth is priority, your identity is embraced, and the work you do matters. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere. Your work will have a direct impact on billions of people around the world – helping unlock financial access to enable the future of money movement.

Join Visa: A Network Working for Everyone.

Team Summary

The Manager will be a member of Japan’s Business Planning & Operations team which is responsible for development of internal and external market-specific strategy efforts and coordinating key programs of work. As a strategist, the individual will work with key parts of the business in structuring and executing analysis to support strategy development aligned to the market, regional, and global priorities.  These priorities will primarily be focused on strategic economics and pricing for the Japan market.

This includes helping recommend setting and adjusting the financial rate of exchange (i.e., interchange reimbursement fee) between different stakeholders in the payments ecosystem and network pricing to optimize participation, innovation, security, and growth. Strategic pricing and interchange are critical levers for driving the revenue and growth of Visa’s network, and effective management of interchange and pricing requires balancing of transaction economics while evaluating new use cases and competitive alternatives.

What a Manager of Japan Interchange and Pricing does at Visa

The Pricing and Interchange Manager has a pivotal role in shaping strategies that will incentivize card issuance and usage, broaden merchant acceptance of electronic payments, and grow Visa’s network. This individual will support functional stakeholders in the continuous monitoring of key factors that drive interchange assessment and formulating recommendations for leadership.

The primary focus of this role is to structure and execute analysis to shape the development of strategic pricing and economic changes in the Japan market. The Manager will lead various aspects of pricing and interchange development, management, operations, and compliance. This role will interface with external stakeholders to address incoming client inquiries and ensure end-to-end implementation of domestic interchange programs. The position will be based in Tokyo, Japan with limited travel to be expected.

The role is highly visible across the market and will have broad reach into a variety of teams within Japan. The ideal candidate must have the ability to gain deep subject matter depth on a multitude of topics in short notice.  The position requires the ability to apply strong analytical and critical thinking skills to solve business problems, and quickly arrive at recommendations that drive corporate priorities. He or she must be able to develop an independent point of view on complex topics in the face of imperfect market information.

Best-suited candidates will be a clear communicator in fluent English and Japanese (both verbal and written), with high emotional intelligence as well as being analytical, self-motivated, and able to collaborate well with others from a diversity of backgrounds. This role reports to the Head of Business Planning & Operations in Japan.  Other key functions of the role include:

• Perform analysis and develop financial models based on internal and external data to provide management with historical information on existing rates and determine the potential for new or adjustment to current rates; includes analysis for specific merchants, merchant segments, and cost/benefit analysis for issuers, acquirers, and Visa;
• Prepare comprehensive pricing interchange dashboards to identify trends to support data-driven decision making;
• Manage domestic interchange compliance program to ensure that clients are qualifying for appropriate interchange rates and work with clients to identify where interchange rates may be incorrectly applied;
• Oversee the implementation of interchange fee programs including clients / merchants’ registration, billing, program compliance review and ongoing reporting;
• Provide operational support to Japanese clients relating to Visa pricing and interchange matters (e.g., inquiries on program qualification criteria and ad-hoc requests for interchange rate analysis)
• Support aspects of pricing rates modelling and forecasting, including evaluation of new pricing opportunities, stakeholder impact assessment, client communication, project management
• Act as a key point of coordination between the Japan business and Regional and Global colleagues working on Pricing and Interchange initiatives

Basic Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree with high academic achievement (preferably in fields of business management, in finance, economics, financial engineering, statistics, econometrics, or other related field)
• Highly proficient in financial modeling/scenario building
• Strong presentation building skills with proficiency in PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc.
• Strong sense of commitment and accountability with a business-focused mindset
• Ability to multi-task with strong attention to detail
• Demonstrated ability to work in a time sensitive environment
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• English and Japanese language proficiency in formal business communication (verbal and written)

Additional Qualifications
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in payment industry, data analysis, pricing and finance or corporate strategy
• Experience in and/or significant exposure to the payments industry preferred
• Strong project management and planning skills with ability to progress multiple priorities concurrently
• Experience in client/customer service preferred

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the evolving visa/travel restrictions in place, we are currently only able to extend offers to candidates with the right to work in Japan and are unable to offer new immigration sponsorship.