Product Owner – Payments (B2B Cross‑Border)

Payments Experience - 8-10 years
Role Purpose
The Product Owner will own and lead the
Payments workstream
transformation program. Working closely with the
Head of Payments
, this role translates CLIENT’s B2B payments strategy into a clear product roadmap and ensures high‑quality delivery across cross‑border payment capabilities into
hard‑to‑reach and emerging markets
.
'
The Product Owner will operate at the intersection of
payments, FX, compliance, operations, treasury and technology
, leading a cross‑functional team to modernize and scale CLIENT’s payment flows while respecting the realities of correspondent banking, regulatory obligations and emerging‑market constraints.'
Key Responsibilities
Product Ownership & Strategy
-
Own the end‑to‑end Payment’s product vision, roadmap and backlog for B2B clients (banks, DFIs, governments, NGOs, fintechs).
-
Translate Head of Payments’ strategic intent into executable product priorities across corridors, rails and platforms.
-
Balance speed, reach and cost with the operational and regulatory realities of CLIENT’s markets.
-
Ensure alignment with overall solution strategy laid out by CLIENT.
Payments Domain Leadership
-
Drive improvements across cross‑border payment initiation, routing, settlement, tracking, reconciliation and exception handling.
-
Manage payments tightly coupled with FX execution, pre‑funding, cut‑offs and liquidity constraints.
-
Design for multi‑rail delivery (correspondent banks, local clearing, mobile money, wallets) across Africa, LATAM, APAC, Caribbean and Middle East.
Regulatory & Risk Alignment
-
Embed AML, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring and market‑specific controls directly into product design.
-
Work closely with Compliance, Risk and Ops to ensure solutions are compliant with UK PRA/FCA expectations and local market regulations.
-
Design preventative controls to reduce payment failures, returns and manual repairs.
Delivery & Team Leadership
-
Lead a cross‑functional squad (engineering, ops, QA, analysts) as Product Owner in an agile delivery model.
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Own sprint planning, prioritisation, acceptance criteria and release readiness.
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Ensure operational readiness, SLAs and support playbooks are in place before go‑live.
-
Align with the overall delivery roadmap of CLIENT.
Stakeholder & Partner Management
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Act as the primary product counterpart to internal stakeholders: Payments, Banking, Treasury, Compliance, Operations, Technology and Sales.
-
Engage with external partners including correspondent banks, clearing partners and payment providers to support corridor expansion and resilience.
Skills & Experience
Essential
-
Strong Product Owner / Product Manager experience in
B2B payments or transaction banking
.
-
Deep understanding of
cross‑border payments
, correspondent banking, and payments into emerging or frontier markets.
-
Hands‑on experience working with regulated financial institutions and complex compliance environments.
-
Ability to operate across business, technology and operations without losing delivery focus.
-
Experience of having implemented a payments product in a banking or payment processor environment.
Highly Desirable
-
Experience with FX‑linked payments, liquidity management or nostro/vostro considerations.
-
Exposure to API‑led payment platforms and gateway models.
-
Experience delivering payments transformation or modernization programs.
What Success Looks Like
-
Faster, more predictable cross‑border payments across priority CLIENT corridors.
-
Reduced payment failures, exceptions and operational friction.
-
Clear alignment between payments strategy, product delivery and regulatory obligations.
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A payments platform that scales CLIENT’s B2B business without increasing risk or cost disproportionately.