200 High-Paying Payments Jobs Head to Charlotte as The Clearing House Picks It Over Atlanta

The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C. will add 200 jobs in Mecklenburg County and invest $11.5 million to expand its operations to Charlotte, and those roles will carry an average annual salary of $162,322, which exceeds the Mecklenburg County average of $90,706. The company runs payment systems that clear and settle more than $2 trillion each business day through wire, ACH, real-time payment, and check-image exchange services. For Metaintro readers in finance and tech, this guide covers what the jobs pay, why Charlotte beat Atlanta, how the state grant works, and what four of the Charlotte listings on The Clearing House careers site ask for.

What Is The Clearing House Bringing to Charlotte?

The project is a new office in Charlotte. Governor Josh Stein announced the project on October 27, and the expansion will establish a modern, secure, and flexible presence that supports the company's long-term business growth, client engagement, operational resilience, and employee experience.

Officials described the office as a strategic workplace and client engagement hub that will include an executive-level presence. The project's state incentives went to a vote under the code name Project Secure.

The timing matters for anyone planning a move. The roles will be added between 2028 and 2032, so the full 200 is a multi-year target rather than a single hiring round. At the announcement it wasn't immediately clear where The Clearing House Payments would put its Charlotte office.

The employer is the New York-based payments company that bills itself as the oldest banking association and private-sector payments company in the United States.

How Much Will the New Charlotte Jobs Pay?

Pay is set as an average annual salary for the whole project, and wages for the positions will vary.

The figure is described as the expected minimum average wage of the new jobs.

Taken together, the new jobs could create a potential annual payroll impact of more than $32.4 million for the region. That average is well past the six-figure line covered in How Much Is Six Figures Really Worth.

The Software Engineer listing, Payments Education Specialist, Incident Management Analyst and RTP product director listings do not print a pay range. The Clearing House says it offers competitive salaries and benefits, including a 401(k) plan.

Charlotte is the second-largest financial center in the nation, Governor Josh Stein said, according to the governor's announcement.

Why Did Charlotte Win Over Atlanta?

The search started wider. Semi-finalist cities for the project included Atlanta, Dallas and Tampa, Fla., and the list was cut to two finalists, Atlanta and Charlotte.

Charlotte was picked because of its quality of life, connectivity to New York and relevant occupational workforce comparisons, reasons laid out in a JDIG presentation by state officials, as reported by The Charlotte Ledger.

David Watson, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Clearing House, called Charlotte one of the nation's leading banking and financial services hubs. N.C. Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley described North Carolina as a national hub for the finance and fintech sectors.

Watson said Charlotte is a place to strengthen relationships with clients in the region while creating new opportunities to connect with financial institutions across the country.

What Incentives Did North Carolina Approve?

The state incentive approved for the project is a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG), which was approved by the state's Economic Investment Committee on the day of the announcement. It authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $2,430,000, spread over 12 years.

The state grant comes on top of an expected $210,000 in incentives from the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

The money is tied to results. State payments occur only following performance verification each year by the departments of Commerce and Revenue that the company has met its incremental job creation and investment targets.

The state also published its own estimates. Over the 12-year term of the grant, the project is estimated to grow the state's economy by $1.3 billion, and its projected return on investment of public dollars is 282 percent. That return means for every dollar of potential cost to the state, the state receives $3.82 in state revenue. Because Mecklenburg County is a Tier 3 county, the agreement also calls for moving as much as $810,000 into the state's Industrial Development Fund Utility Account, which helps rural communities anywhere in the state finance necessary infrastructure upgrades to attract future business.

Workforce bodies are among the project partners. Partners named on the project include Commerce's Division of Workforce Solutions, the North Carolina Community College System, Mecklenburg County, and the City of Charlotte. No training course tied to this project has been announced in the governor's release.

How Does a JDIG Grant Work for a Project Like This?

A JDIG is a performance-based, discretionary incentive program that provides cash grants directly to a company when it creates jobs and invests in the state. These grants are awarded only in competitive recruitment or retention situations.

The size of each award depends on several factors listed by the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

• The location of the project
• The county tier designation
• The number of net new jobs created in North Carolina
• The wages of the jobs, compared to the given county average wage
• The level of investment made in the state
• The company's industry sector, and that industry's alignment with the state's targeted industry sectors

Payments are set by a formula that takes into consideration the new taxes generated by the new jobs that are created. A share of that new tax money is reimbursed to the awarded company, for the limited term of the grant and as long as the company meets its performance target. JDIG grants hold companies to strict performance targets, but the grants can significantly help offset the cost of locating or expanding a facility in the state.

What Does The Clearing House Actually Do?

The Clearing House was founded in 1853 and is a bank-owned industry utility that provides infrastructure for payments. It operates four payment systems, the CHIPS wire network, the RTP instant payments network, the EPN automated clearinghouse network and the Image Exchange Network for checks.

The RTP network, which the company calls the country's first and largest instant payments system, handles transactions up to $10 million around the clock. In Q3 2026 alone the network handled 150 million transactions totaling $621 billion, and it had over 1,378 participants as of September 2026.

The company markets the network on 100% uptime, zero scheduled downtime, and the incident listing asks the analyst to keep incident calls focused on impact assessment, restoration of service, client considerations, and timely escalation.

Everyday banking runs through these systems too. The company's core products support Direct Deposit of payroll, bill payments, and check image exchange, so the work reaches ordinary paychecks and bills.

Which Charlotte Roles Has The Clearing House Posted?

The company had 36 job postings for Charlotte on its website, including engineers, vice president of business product management and several director roles, at the time of the announcement. The new hiring is spread over several years, and the governor's release does not say whether current openings count toward the 200.

Four Charlotte listings show the range of work on offer.

• A Software Engineer on the RTP Product Engineering team, building the real-time interbank payment platform
• An Incident Management Analyst who coordinates incidents from identification through resolution and closure
• A Payments Education Specialist who supports TCHPA member institutions and corporate subscribers and delivers payments education
• A Director, RTP Product Management who sits under the SVP, Head of RTP

All four set office days, and the education role and director role both set three office days a week. The software role requires office attendance three days each week, and the incident role sets it at up to three days each week. The software, incident and education listings add that onsite work requirements may change at any time.

With its deep talent pool and strong financial services community, Charlotte is an ideal location for The Clearing House to build on our longstanding presence in North Carolina, David Watson, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Clearing House, said, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce release.

What Do the Current Listings Ask For?

The requirements differ a lot by level, so read each one in full.

The Software Engineer role asks for a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Data Science, or related fields, a solid understanding of core software engineering concepts including object-oriented and functional programming, data structures, APIs, automated testing, and source code control, and 3+ years in Java software development experience including analysis, design, development, documentation, implementation and testing of systems. It also wants experience developing Python scripts and programs for data management and analysis, exposure to working in AWS or another major public cloud provider and familiar with cloud-native application architectures, microservices, containers, and distributed systems, and a solid understanding of CI/CD and automated software build/deployment processes, with Spring, Kubernetes, Terraform and Kafka listed among the desired skills.

Engineers in this role will use approved AI-assisted development tools under enterprise controls.

The Payments Education Specialist role is the only one of the four that names an associate's degree. It asks for an Associate's degree or equivalent from two-year college or technical school and two to four years related experience and/or training, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. A separate line asks for business or FI operations experience in the range of two to five years. It also requires an Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) with strong knowledge of the ACH payment system, and travel is required.

The Incident Management Analyst role lists no degree or set number of years. It asks for experience in incident management, production support, operations, service management, or a related discipline within a complex operational environment, and it prefers experience with ServiceNow or comparable IT service management platforms. Post-mortems are due within the established two-week target.

At the senior end, the RTP product director role asks for a Bachelor's degree in finance, business, economics, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. It also asks for 8+ years of progressive product management experience, preferably in payments, banking, fintech, or financial services, with demonstrated ownership of complex product or market initiatives, with instant or faster payments experience strongly preferred.

How Does Charlotte Fit With the Company's Existing North Carolina Base?

Charlotte is not the company's first North Carolina site. It has 216 jobs in Forsyth County, and its employees work primarily in New York City, NY and Winston-Salem, NC.

The Winston-Salem site has grown before. In April 2018, the company was recruiting for approximately 50 highly-skilled positions for its Winston-Salem facility. Those roles were to be principally in the Technology and Operations area, covering quality control testing, change and release management, software development, software engineering, project management and operations support.

The Incident Management Analyst and Payments Education Specialist listings also name a second location, the North Carolina Office.

What This Means for Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

The pay is the draw here. The catch is timing. The practical move is to apply to the openings already posted on The Clearing House careers site, since the 200 are scheduled for later years.

• Apply to what is posted. Current openings are linked from The Clearing House careers site.
• Learn the payment rails. The software and director roles both work on the RTP network, and the education role requires the Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) credential.
• Match the tech stack. The engineering role centers on Java, Python and AWS, with Docker, containers, and/or Kubernetes among the desired skills.
• Negotiate on the role, not the average. The pay figure is an average, since wages for the positions will vary, and How to Negotiate a Job Offer After You Have It in Writing covers the steps once an offer arrives.

Lacey Kaelani, Metaintro's CEO, puts it this way: A hiring target years out is a signal, not a job. The people who get in early are the ones who apply while the office is still being set up.

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People Also Asked

Q: How many jobs is The Clearing House creating in Charlotte?

A: The company will add 200 jobs in Mecklenburg County, and those jobs will be added in Charlotte between 2028 and 2032.

Q: What is the average salary for The Clearing House jobs in Charlotte?

A: Wages will vary by role, but the average annual salary will be $162,322, well above the Mecklenburg County average.

Q: Where can I apply for The Clearing House jobs in Charlotte?

A: Openings are posted on The Clearing House careers site, and Charlotte Office listings include a software engineer, an incident management analyst, a payments education specialist and an RTP product director.

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