At Checkout.com, we’re proud to partner with the Merchant Risk Council to bring you access to a growing suite of sponsored educational courses. Education is an essential growth engine for payment and finance leaders looking to upskill teams and build the next generation of payment professionals.
The latest addition – Payment Essentials: Advanced – takes this learning journey a step further, moving beyond foundational knowledge into the strategic and analytical side of payments performance. It joins an established suite of courses including:
As payments becomes increasingly central to business performance and complexity continues to grow, this latest course raises an important question: why is now the right time for businesses to invest more seriously in payments education?
From ‘falling into’ to falling in love: A short history of the payments profession
The payments career path has never looked better. That’s probably why it's becoming increasingly well-trodden. Yet, ten years ago, most businesses didn't have designated payments roles. People ‘fell into’ payments before they fell in love with the profession.
“It didn't feel exciting or an area where you could forge a career," recalls Alexandru Dorobantu, reflecting on his early ‘accidental’ entry into payments. But Dorobantu went on to hold a series of senior payment roles, including Senior Director of Global Payments at Delivery Hero, citing the “complexity, high pace of change, the impact, and how payments is the key for ecommerce, globalization, and future business growth” as the reasons that make it so compelling.
This “I didn’t plan or dream it” story is echoed again and again in interviews conducted with payments leaders in our career exploration series, My Path in Payments. After all, you can’t dream of a role you didn't know existed.
LinkedIn currently advertizes over 85,000 open payment positions globally. These payment roles can have several focuses – such as product, data analytics, fraud, or engineering. But more often than not, payments professionals find themselves covering all the bases: constantly working to ensure the money keeps flowing in, fraudsters are kept out, the regulators are kept satisfied, and the customers are kept happy, and keep returning
Where we invest in our core payments expertise
Payments professionals exhibit a wide and varied skill set that reflects the complexity of the evolving digital and tech space and the fundamental importance of ensuring maximum cash flow into the business at all times. Indeed, payments today sits at the heart of the business, as former Airbnb’s Payments and Commerce Product Manager, Colleen Graneto, says: "Working in payments offers a unique intersection of technology, finance, and customer service. You’re at the heart of the business.”
Sitting at the nerve center of the business, the ‘make-or-break’ power of payments in the digital economy is now well understood beyond silos and above the weeds. According to J.P.Morgan’s 2025 Digital Payments Survey Report, 76% of organizations are planning to update their payments strategy in the next three years. As complexity increases, 72% are exploring new payment formats and technologies, driving demand for more specialized expertise and leadership in payments.
Payments are an important part of my function
Incredible talent deserves to be nurtured
Payments roles are a perfect fit for people who love problem solving. The complex and ambidextrous demands of the role naturally draw great people: intelligent, curious, and versatile individuals who are able to learn on the job.
“It's a dynamic field where innovation is constant – there's always something new to learn," says Graneto, opining that “the ability to adapt quickly and stay ahead of trends is crucial.”
But learning on the job means learning from mistakes. And while that is always a good thing, at Checkout.com we firmly believe the world’s payment talent deserves better than that. We envisage a world where payments brains are empowered through knowledge and expert education to be on the front foot and to maximize their vast potential wherever they are on the career ladder. It is increasingly evident that payments needs dedicated experts. Equally, as other functions increasingly touch payments, a wider range of professionals need some payments knowledge too.
The rising importance of payments leader roles
There’s no doubt payments leadership roles like Chief Financial Officers, Chief Product Officers, and Heads of Payments are critical in 2026. But where can the knowledge required to get there be accessed?
The recent explosion of fintech industries and roles has made it difficult for higher and executive education institutions to keep up. At the same time, rapid technological shifts – such as emerging eras like agentic commerce – are making it harder for businesses to define the skills they need and build effective in-house training to match.
But as this once nascent profession quickly becomes established, the benefits of equipping the payments talent pipeline with high-quality payments education will be felt by both individuals and companies. EY’s The future of the talent agenda in payments report found that “learning is a key part of any career in payments and is a priority for payment businesses to enable innovation and engagement.” Learning and skills were identified as the top priority for employees and employers to thrive.
Unlocking access to payments education
Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. We agree. At Checkout.com, our mission is to enable businesses and their communities to thrive in the digital economy. Our vision is to empower people to do this through access to education. That’s why we are very excited to continue to sponsor three MRC courses on Payment Essentials: Fundamentals, Fraud Essentials, Payment Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and introduce the newly launched Payment Essentials: Advanced course.
Our partnership provides access to high-quality training for MRC members around the globe. And because payments are so core to the success and smooth running of any modern consumer business, the course also aids business owners, customer service, IT, and marketing professionals in ecommerce. It empowers teams to make informed decisions and stay updated in the fast-paced ecommerce world.
Financial analysts gain insights into chargebacks, interchange fees, and regulations, ensuring compliance and efficiency. Compliance officers benefit from understanding payment laws and standards, and mitigating legal risks. And tomorrow’s Chief Payments Officers will need to know it all.
“For more than 25 years, the MRC has been ahead of the curve, delivering payments training and qualifications to our global membership,” says the MRC’s CEO Julie Fergerson, “and in the past few years we have witnessed the marked rise of payments as a strategic, C-level, matter. Payments are now acknowledged as utterly instrumental to consumer reach and expansion strategies. Recruiting smart and skilled talent to support these important objectives is only going to become more important, and we are glad that with partners like Checkout.com, the MRC will continue to deliver the payments knowledge that’s in demand.”
“Nobody is born with payments knowledge,” points out Checkout.com’s Chief Revenue Officer Antoine Nougué, "but all the numbers point to the fact that more and more people globally are going to need it. By supporting access to payments education, we strive to democratize access to the world’s most exciting fintech and ecommerce roles and to turbocharge what it means for businesses to thrive in the digital economy. When businesses are armed with payments experts and diverse talent, they will maximize revenue collection and, ultimately, their growth.”
Education is a journey that never ends
Our conviction is that thriving starts with education. Tenacious and versatile by nature, payments professionals are always sprinting to support their businesses and ensure the lifeblood of cash keeps flowing. Imagine what all that talent could achieve with even better training and education. From young students and early-stage professionals to nurturing tomorrow’s Chief Payment Officers, Checkout.com is committed to sharing and building payments expertise throughout people’s career paths.
Our employees at Checkout.com are also graduates of our own Payments Academy, an employee training program consisting of over five hours of online learning and assessments, which cover topics such as payments economics, global regulation, and technology. We aim to keep building the best and most diverse talent pool for the world's most exciting career path at the world's most exciting businesses.
.png)
Leveling up in payment optimization
The MRC Payment Essentials: Advanced course is designed for professionals looking to move beyond foundational payments knowledge and focus on optimizing real-world payment performance. It explores the strategic and analytical side of payments, helping learners understand how to improve authorization rates, reduce declines, and balance fraud prevention with conversion. It also covers key areas such as orchestration, routing strategies, and the complexities of operating across global payment environments.
The course bridges the gap between theory and execution. Participants learn how to interpret key payment metrics, identify where in the payment funnel performance can be improved, and apply practical strategies like smart routing, retry logic, and tokenization. It also builds understanding of regulatory frameworks and modern payment infrastructure, such as alternative payment methods.
For me, the benefit is the ability to make more data-driven, impactful decisions in payment strategy. It provides a structured way to diagnose performance issues and implement improvements that directly affect authorization rates, fraud outcomes, and customer experience. Ultimately, it strengthens the ability to boost payment performance at scale and drive measurable business results.
About the MRC
The MRC is a global non-profit membership association connecting ecommerce professionals through industry-leading educational programs, online community groups, conferences, and networking events. We're moving payments and fraud prevention forward by advocating for safer and more profitable ecommerce for everyone.
.jpeg)
.png)
%20v1.jpg)
