Founding Faculty
Christopher Lawrence: Payments Strategy, Acquiring Expert & Investor
Founding Faculty · Payment Faculty
Christopher Lawrence is a senior payments professional with more than 35 years of experience across merchant acquiring, banking, payment processing, commercial strategy and strategic partnerships.
His career has included senior leadership roles across major banks and payments businesses, advising large organisations on acquiring and payments strategy, and building commercial relationships across the wider payments ecosystem. Today, Christopher combines payments consultancy, strategic advisory and investment activity alongside his role within the Founding Faculty at Payment Faculty.
At a glance
- 35+ years in payments
- Merchant acquiring
- Payments strategy
- Large corporate payments
- Strategic partnerships
- Consultancy & investment
About Christopher Lawrence
Christopher has worked in cards, merchant acquiring and payments since 1989, building a career that spans merchant sales, payments operations, large-corporate relationship management, senior commercial leadership, payments strategy and consultancy.
He began his payments career with Midland Bank selling card-processing facilities to retailers, before moving through sales management, supplier relationships and senior operational roles within Midland Bank and HSBC.
Christopher subsequently held increasingly senior acquiring and corporate-payments positions across HSBC, Global Payments, Worldpay and Barclaycard. His responsibilities have included large corporate customers, acquiring propositions, sales and relationship-management teams, strategic partnerships and payment-service improvement programmes.
Since moving into independent advisory work, Christopher has broadened that experience into payments strategy and architecture, merchant-services consultancy, commercial optimisation and investment. His principal current role is Managing Partner of The Sarchi Partnership, his payments and investment consultancy.
His experience gives him a broad perspective on payments from several sides of the ecosystem: merchant, bank, acquirer, payment provider, consultant and investor.
Areas of payments expertise
Merchant acquiring
More than three decades of experience across card acceptance and acquiring, from merchant sales through to leading large-corporate acquiring teams and advising organisations on modern payment arrangements.
Payment strategy & architecture
Helping organisations assess how their payment infrastructure, provider relationships and operating model should evolve to support commercial, operational and customer objectives.
Payments commercial optimisation
Reviewing payment arrangements, provider relationships and commercial structures to identify opportunities for cost optimisation and improved commercial outcomes.
Large corporate payments
Extensive experience working with large and complex organisations across acquiring, issuing, ecommerce, corporate payments and strategic account management.
Strategic payments partnerships
Building and managing relationships across banks, acquirers, payment providers, technology businesses and specialist partners.
Provider strategy & merchant services
Helping businesses navigate payment providers, merchant-services requirements and the commercial and operational considerations behind provider decisions.
Payments career
September 2022 to present
The Sarchi Partnership
Managing Partner
Christopher's principal current role is Managing Partner of The Sarchi Partnership, an umbrella payments and investment consultancy. His work spans payments advisory, commercial relationships and selected investment activity.
August 2026 to present
BB Merchant Services
Partner
Christopher works across sales and relationship management for BB Merchant Services' cost-management and payments-consultancy services, including benchmarking, renegotiation and payment-processing advisory.
Strategic Partner Director
August 2023 to August 2026
Responsible for developing the BB Merchant Services payments partner panel, growing it from a small number of relationships to more than 80 partners and establishing a broader payments-provider ecosystem.
Global Merchant Services Advisor
December 2022 to August 2026
Helped merchant customers navigate payment providers, commercial arrangements and the wider complexity of the payments market.
July 2023 to present
SSP Group plc
Payment Services Strategy & Architecture Consultant
Christopher works on payment-services strategy and architecture, including cost optimisation, consolidation and customer-service enhancement across an international operation spanning 35 countries.
February 2026 to present
Inqyre
Angel Investor
Investor in an AI-led merchant-onboarding and automation business, alongside introducing relevant prospective clients.
April 2025 to present
Perfect Hive
Angel Investor
Investor and advocate within a hospitality and coworking business group.
March 2023 to present
CRS
Introducer & Facilitator
Supports introductions within specialist payments-industry recruitment.
September 2022 to March 2024
Planet Payments
Consultant
Supported the promotion of Planet's payments capabilities within the payments industry.
2014 to 2022
Barclaycard
Career progression with overlapping senior responsibilities.
Head of Public Sector / Vice President, Corporate Industries
January 2021 to August 2022
Led large-corporate sales and relationship managers aligned to industry verticals, covering card acquiring and issuing products and services alongside service-enhancement projects.
Head of Corporate Industries
January 2016 to January 2021
Led new-business and account-management activity serving corporate organisations across Barclaycard's payments propositions.
Head of Large Corporates
May 2014 to January 2021
Led new-business activity for organisations with substantial annual card-processing volumes.
September 2012 to January 2014
Worldpay
Head of Large Corporates
Led Account Directors responsible for retaining major corporate payment relationships and developing additional services with large card-processing customers.
June 2008 to September 2012
Global Payments
Head of Sales & Relationship Teams
Christopher led more than 25 people across specialist sales and relationship teams covering Global Banking & Markets, Corporate Accounts, International Ecommerce and Strategic Partnerships. His responsibilities included acquiring sales, major-customer relationship management, international ecommerce and strategic referral relationships.
1997 to 2008
HSBC
Head of Corporate Global Processing
January 2004 to June 2008
Led a sales and relationship-management team responsible for corporate payment relationships and growth across new and existing business.
Corporate Account Manager, Card Processing, Global Payments & Cash Management
January 2000 to January 2004
Combined sales and relationship management for a portfolio of major HSBC Global Banking & Markets customers.
Manager, Customer Telephone Services
June 1999 to June 2000
Managed customer-service and operational delivery within HSBC's UK credit-card telephony operation, including significant staffing and budget responsibility.
Manager, Operations
April 1997 to May 1999
Managed several card-related operational areas including loyalty, reconciliation, statement fulfilment and administration.
1989 to 1999
Midland Bank
Loyalty Programme Supplier Manager
September 1996 to March 1999
Managed supplier and internal relationships supporting the bank's loyalty programme and negotiated revised operational practices and commercial terms.
Area Sales Manager
June 1994 to August 1996
Managed a team of merchant sales managers selling card-processing facilities to retailers and helped develop the induction programme for merchant sales managers.
Sales Manager
June 1989 to May 1994
Christopher began his payments career selling credit- and debit-card processing facilities to retailers.
Experience across the payments ecosystem
- Merchant acquiring
- Banking
- Large corporate payments
- Card processing
- Ecommerce payments
- Payment strategy
- Payment architecture
- Merchant services
- Strategic partnerships
- Payments operations
- Provider relationships
- Commercial optimisation
Christopher's career spans the operational, commercial and strategic sides of payments, from selling merchant processing in 1989 through to advising organisations on payments strategy, architecture and commercial optimisation today.
His deepest market experience is across the UK and Europe, supported by broader experience of international payments and current strategic work involving operations across multiple countries.
Practical payments experience
Payment decisions rarely sit within a single area. Provider relationships can affect commercial terms, technology, operations, customer experience, settlement and long-term payments strategy.
Christopher's career has covered merchant sales, payments operations, large corporate acquiring, senior sales leadership, strategic partnerships and payments architecture. That breadth enables him to consider the commercial and operational consequences of a payments decision together rather than viewing it purely as a provider or procurement decision.
Christopher's role at Payment Faculty
As a member of the Founding Faculty, Christopher brings more than 35 years of practical payments experience and industry relationships to Payment Faculty.
His background in acquiring, major corporate payments, partnerships, commercial optimisation and payments strategy supports the Faculty's focus on experienced, commercially grounded expertise.
His role can include:
- Merchant acquiring expertise
- Payments strategy perspective
- Major corporate payments experience
- Provider and partnership knowledge
- Commercial payments expertise
- Industry relationships and current-market perspective
Payments industry involvement
APACS37b
Christopher has chaired APACS37b since 2005. The informal payments-industry group meets monthly to discuss developments across payments and the wider market and now brings together approximately 180 members from across the payments world.
Alongside his formal roles, Christopher remains closely connected to the wider payments community through industry relationships, provider partnerships, consultancy and investment activity.
External profiles & references
Christopher Lawrence is a member of the Founding Faculty at Payment Faculty. His profile describes professional experience and areas of payments expertise. Payment Faculty is not a law firm, accountancy practice or regulated legal adviser, and specialist legal, regulatory or tax advice should be obtained where required.
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