Role Purpose
The Senior Business Analyst will support our client cross-border payments initiatives, enabling expansion into new countries and payment rails (ACH, Instant Payments, Wallets, Cards, and local clearing systems). The role is heavily focused on payment payload specifications, regulatory data requirements, and end‑to‑end payment flows, ensuring solutions are compliant, scalable, and interoperable across markets.
This role acts as a bridge between product, technology, operations, compliance, and external partners, ensuring payments are built right the first time.
Key Responsibilities
Payments & Domain Responsibilities
- Lead business analysis for cross-border and local payments initiatives, including:
- ACH & local clearing
- Instant/RTP schemes
- Wallet-based payments
- Card-based payouts
- Map end-to-end payment journeys across initiation, processing, clearing, settlement, and reconciliation.
- Deeply analyze and maintain payment payload specifications, including:
- Mandatory vs optional fields
- Country-specific regulatory and market requirements
- Scheme- or rail-specific data constraints
- Translate regulatory, compliance, and scheme rules into clear business and functional requirements.
Regulatory & Compliance Alignment
- Ensure compliance with:
- Local central bank and regulator requirements
- AML / CFT / Sanctions-related data needs
- Data residency and formatting rules per country
- Work closely with Compliance, Legal, and Financial Crime teams to embed requirements into payment designs.
- Support regulatory submissions, audits, and scheme onboarding by providing accurate documentation and data mappings.
Delivery & Stakeholder Management
- Own Business Requirement Documents (BRDs), Functional Specs, and Data Mapping documents.
- Act as the payments SME in delivery squads and cross-functional forums.
- Support technology teams during:
- API design and payload validation
- Scheme certification testing
- UAT and go-live readiness
- Coordinate with external stakeholders (schemes, partners, correspondent banks, PSPs).
Documentation & Governance
- Maintain payment rulebooks, data dictionaries, and scheme playbooks.
- Ensure standardization while allowing for country- or rail-specific deviations.
- Identify gaps, risks, and dependencies early and escalate proactively.
Required Experience & Background
Essential
- 7–10+ years experience as a Business Analyst, with strong focus on payments.
- Proven experience in cross‑border payments and multi-rail payment environments.
- Hands-on involvement with payment payloads, ISO formats, APIs, or message specifications.
- Strong understanding of:
- ACH & local clearing systems
- Instant/RTP schemes
- Wallet or alternative payment methods
- Experience working in or with:
- Banks
- Payment service providers
- FinTechs
- Payment schemes or clearing houses
Strongly Preferred
- Experience with market expansion / new country onboarding.
- Exposure to ISO 20022, legacy formats, or proprietary scheme specs.
- Background working closely with Compliance / Financial Crime teams.
- Experience in regulated environments (Tier-1 banks is a big plus).
Key Skills & Competencies
Payments Knowledge
- Payment lifecycle (initiation → settlement)
- Clearing & settlement models
- Scheme rules & operating procedures
- Cross-border vs domestic payment differences
Technical & Analytical
- Ability to read, understand, and challenge API specs and message schemas
- Data mapping and transformation logic
- Identifying mandatory data elements per corridor and rail
- Understanding payment failures, rejections, and exception handling
Soft Skills
- Strong stakeholder management across business, tech, compliance, and vendors
- Comfortable pushing back and challenging assumptions
- Excellent documentation and communication skills
- Detail-oriented with strong risk awareness
