Payments Expansion Economics and Funding Readiness Adviser

The mandate

The growth committee keeps asking whether a new payments market or merchant segment deserves funding when transaction volume can grow faster than retained income and cash resilience. The adviser will challenge the expansion economics and evidence supporting capital discussions. This is not an investor-introduction retainer or a mandate to advocate for growth regardless of settlement consequences.

Four days monthly cover expansion-case evidence, a finance and commercial challenge session, and committee attendance. The meeting is included in the retainer. A new question will receive acknowledgement by the following working day; a documented view is normally provided within three working days once the relevant contract and cash evidence is available.

The advisory term runs nine months from 19 October 2026. The chair will consider renewal if the expansion agenda still needs independent finance challenge and the advice remains free from counterparty incentives. No line authority is granted, and the adviser carries no executive responsibility for treasury, capital raising or commercial execution. Executives retain all binding decisions.

The sponsor supplies unit-economics cases, settlement assumptions, infrastructure cost records and funding options. Advice should distinguish capital needed to absorb growth-related obligations from capital used to improve a durable economic engine. A favourable headline take rate must be tested against support, device, servicing and funding burdens before it supports a stronger investment claim.

Concurrent advice is allowed outside competing payment-platform and active-counterparty relationships. Remuneration from a lender, infrastructure supplier or investor involved in the reviewed expansion creates a conflict and must be disclosed. Facility negotiation, valuation certification and market-launch execution are excluded. The committee is buying independent financial reasoning, not a guarantee of funding or a shadow finance chief.

What you will own

• Challenge expansion contribution using retained fees, infrastructure effort and servicing costs, pressing sponsors to distinguish economic value from growth in processed payment volume.
• Test settlement and funding assumptions under delayed or disputed flows, advising where a promising market requires more liquidity protection than the headline case suggests.
• Shape staged expansion options that preserve capital flexibility, identifying evidence needed before merchant or infrastructure commitments become harder to reverse.
• Examine fundraising-readiness claims for consistency with approved finance records, flagging where operating scenarios have been presented as established results, and the next evidence review trigger.
• Press commercial owners to identify contract dependencies that can erode margin or increase settlement exposure, without negotiating terms on their behalf.
• Review funding alternatives for repayment timing and operating freedom, explaining which downside condition would change the committee's preferred capital route.
• Record independent advice and conflict limitations in a finance note, leaving external communication, funding negotiations and all binding signatures with authorised executives.

Candidate qualifications

• Evidence senior payments-finance or CFO experience involving growth and capital choices. Explain an expansion case you challenged, the settlement or infrastructure assumption investigated and the financial consequence of a different sequence.
• Demonstrate unit-economics judgement that goes beyond take rate and gross volume. Candidates should describe a cost or funding burden initially omitted and show how the revised contribution changed an investment recommendation.
• Provide a capital-readiness example with source-linked financial evidence. Explain which claim was supportable, which remained a scenario and how authorised executives were prevented from relying on an overly confident narrative.
• Show independence from fundraising and supplier incentives. Describe disclosure or recusal where a counterparty relationship existed, including how confidential expansion information remained separated from concurrent assignments.
• Be able to sustain four reserved days monthly and give usable advice under uncertain growth assumptions. Professional finance competence must be evidenced; the retainer does not confer regulated placement, formal valuation assurance or executive treasury authority, and candidates should be able to explain those boundaries. Show how you treated an expansion case with incomplete settlement history: which assumption remained provisional, what limited commitment could still be supported and what evidence the committee would need before funding a broader rollout. Advice must retain those distinctions through later updates.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 14 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-ADV-2026-IND-11.