Risk & Compliance Specialist

Role overview

As a Risk & Compliance Specialist at Polar, you help protect the integrity of the Polar platform by reviewing merchants, identifying potential risks, and ensuring compliance with Polar policies and payment partner requirements. You’ll work closely with Merchant Support, Product, and Operations to balance a smooth merchant experience with effective risk management.

Responsibilities

• Review new merchant applications and assess eligibility to sell on the Polar platform.
• Perform ongoing account reviews to detect changes in merchant activity or risk profile.
• Evaluate merchants against Polar’s Acceptable Use Policy and other platform requirements.
• Investigate fraud and payment risk signals, including disputes and chargebacks and other suspicious activity.
• Manage merchant offboarding, payout holds, and other risk-mitigation actions as needed.
• Partner with payment providers and internal teams to resolve compliance and account issues.
• Document decisions and maintain clear, consistent internal processes.
• Improve risk workflows, tooling, and operational efficiency.
• Monitor emerging abuse trends and escalate complex/high-risk cases to leadership.

Requirements

• 2+ years in Risk Operations, Trust & Safety, Compliance, Fraud Operations, Payments, or Merchant Operations.
• Strong analytical and investigative skills with high attention to detail.
• Excellent written communication; able to explain complex decisions professionally.
• Experience reviewing accounts, investigating fraud, or evaluating merchant risk.
• Ability to prioritize and make consistent, well-reasoned decisions.
• Comfortable working cross-functionally with Support, Product, and external payment partners.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with SQL for investigating data, validating risk signals, and answering operational questions.