Product Manager - Payment Network Expansion & Integrations

Description

The company runs a global payment network that links customers to banks, clearing systems and payment schemes across several markets and currencies.

This is a Product Manager role in the Payments product team, based in London, UK, reporting to the Lead Product Manager for Payment Network Expansion & Integrations.

You will take assigned bank, payment rail and scheme connections from discovery through certification, launch and the stabilisation period after go-live.

You will work day to day with Engineering, Architecture, Treasury, Operations, Compliance, Risk, Client Services and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Own assigned integrations from requirements through engineering delivery, testing, certification, launch and post-launch stabilisation.
• Turn bank, scheme and partner specifications into product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, delivery plans and milestones.
• Define how much of the payment lifecycle each integration covers, including initiation, validation, acknowledgements, status reporting, returns, rejects, reconciliation and settlement.
• Work with Engineering and Architecture to pick integration approaches that work well and avoid unnecessary partner-specific complexity.
• Drive partner testing and certification, and take defects and dependencies through to closure.
• Keep delivery status, risks, decisions needed and target dates visible to everyone involved.
• Learn partner capabilities, message formats, API and SWIFT specifications, operating models, limits and service levels.
• Define standard payment flows and the edge cases around them, such as delayed acknowledgements, duplicate messages, failed payments and reconciliation breaks.
• Build payment party data, compliance controls, routing, funding, settlement and reconciliation needs into integration designs.
• Check that requirements are complete, testable and consistent with the company's product, technical and operational standards.
• Maintain documentation of payment flows, message mappings, assumptions, decisions and known limitations.
• Join Engineering squad work through design, build and testing, including refinement, sprint planning and delivery reviews.
• Coordinate with Treasury, Operations, Compliance, Risk, Client Services and external banking partners to resolve dependencies and keep delivery moving.
• Raise problems early, explain their impact, and push for timely decisions and escalations with clear recommendations.
• Set clear ownership between the company and external partners through delivery, certification and launch, including across time zones.
• Put monitoring, alerting, support processes, operational ownership and escalation paths in place before go-live.
• Work with Operations to define day-to-day processes for payment status, returns, exceptions, reconciliation and client support.
• Check operational and reconciliation reports, and make sure manual workarounds are understood, controlled and kept to a minimum.
• Support go-live readiness reviews and confirm product, technical, operational and partner launch criteria are met.
• Use post-launch performance, incidents and feedback to identify and deliver improvements.
• Reuse established integration patterns, requirement templates and delivery playbooks, and shared platform capabilities where a common solution works.
• Record lessons learned and improve product standards, documentation, testing and launch processes.
• Define and track delivery predictability, time to certification, time to live, reliability and exception rates for your integrations.
• Give useful input to portfolio planning, prioritisation, capacity discussions and stakeholder reporting.
• Help the Lead Product Manager set consistent delivery standards and portfolio visibility, and show how each integration fits the wider network and customer offer.

Requirements

• At least 4 years of product management or product delivery experience in payments, banking infrastructure or financial technology.
• Hands-on experience delivering bank, payment rail, clearing, scheme or processor integrations.
• Experience with APIs, host-to-host connectivity, and SWIFT and/or ISO 20022 payment messaging.
• A strong grasp of the payment lifecycle: initiation, clearing, settlement, reconciliation, payment status, returns and exceptions.
• Experience working in Agile teams with Engineering, Architecture, Operations, Compliance, Risk and external partners.
• Experience with delivery tools such as Jira and Confluence, and a structured, data-led approach to managing delivery.
• Strong written and spoken communication, including explaining complex delivery issues to technical and non-technical people.
• Nice to have: experience with cross-border payments and UK, EU or other domestic payment rails.

Conditions

Office workspace is assigned to you, and the company provides your equipment.

Formal, hands-on training is provided.

The role is based in London, UK.

The company is committed to fair and transparent pay. Pay decisions rest on objective, job-related factors such as skills, experience, qualifications and market benchmarks; salary ranges are shared where the law requires.

Equal-opportunity and background-screening details apply as set out in the employer's hiring process.

Benefits

• 25 days of annual leave plus 8 bank holidays.
• You can buy or sell up to 5 days of annual leave each year during the benefits enrolment window.
• Pension with a minimum 3% employee contribution and up to 5% employer contribution.
• Private medical insurance through Vitality with no excess for employees; the company pays the standard £250 excess.
• Access to the Gratitudes benefits platform with flexible discounts, supermarket savings of 4, 5% and exclusive employee offers.
• Free access to LinkedIn Learning, with thousands of courses for professional and personal growth.