Head of Product

Al Etihad Payments; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Al Etihad Payments is seeking a Head of Product to lead the strategy, design and market adoption of open data and payment propositions across Open Banking, Open Insurance, Open FX, Open e-Wallets and Open Wealth. You will own the proposition, user journeys, data/consent needs and acceptance criteria, collaborating with Ozone, Nebras and regulators to ensure market relevance.

You will work with the tech function to ensure standards and hub capabilities meet delivery needs, while leading

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or master's degree in a related field.
• Senior product leadership in open banking, payments, or regulated ecosystems.

Responsibilities

• Set coherent product vision and prioritized roadmap across five domains.
• Own requirements, business rules, data needs and acceptance criteria; translate to standards.
• Lead go-to-market plans, partnerships and ecosystem growth for adoption and live usage.
• Present proposals and align pricing with governance and regulatory requirements.

Skills

APIs & data models

Stakeholder mgmt

Product leadership

Open banking

Education

Bachelor's or master's degree in related field

Job description

Al Etihad Payments empowers employees to work in an environment that best promotes their productivity and well-being, while providing high-quality workplace and fantastic professional experience.

|Get to Know Us

Al Etihad Payments is the UAE’s designated retail payments entity, dedicated to developing and operating world-class infrastructure, standards, and solutions for the UAE Economy. Al Etihad Payments is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE, strongly supported by the UAE Government.

Our employees are committed to work with licensed financial institutions and other payment service providers to foster innovation and deliver excellent financial services to all in the UAE, efficiently and without friction.

Al Etihad Payments supports the government’s objectives of a cashless society, national digitization, and the Central Bank of the UAE objective of being a top ten central bank globally.

|Our Culture

We are a collaborative, diverse and passionate group of individuals that works as one team. We support one another, make impactful contributions to the organization, and develop and nurture meaningful connections across the payments ecosystem!

About the role

Lead the product strategy, design and market adoption of open data and payment propositions across Open Banking, Open Insurance, Open FX, Open e-Wallets and Open Wealth. Turn ecosystem needs into useful, trusted services delivered through the national API Hub, and build the positioning, partnerships and go-to-market plans that drive meaningful use.

The Head of Product owns the proposition, user journeys, functional requirements, data and consent needs, business rules and acceptance criteria. The role works closely with Ozone, Nebras technology and the relevant regulatory and industry stakeholders on schemas and specifications. Ozone and the technology function lead the technical design, implementation and operation of the API standards and Hub; the Head of Product ensures those outputs meet market and business needs.

What You’ll Do

Portfolio strategy and product design

• Set a coherent product vision and prioritised roadmap across the five domains, balancing regulatory objectives, participant readiness, customer value and delivery capacity.
• Discover and validate use cases with banks, insurers, exchange and FX providers, e-wallet providers, wealth firms, third party providers and end users; define the outcomes and journeys each proposition must support.
• Design product features across data access, payments and related consent experiences where applicable, including the value proposition, eligibility, user journeys, service levels and adoption path.
• Assess cross-domain opportunities and dependencies while recognising that each sector may have different permissions, stakeholders and implementation requirements.
• Version management of the Standard and their articulation to the ecosystem

Requirements and specification collaboration

• Own product requirements, functional specifications, business rules, data needs, schema requirements and clear acceptance criteria; maintain traceability from market need through release.
• Work with Ozone to translate requirements into implementable standards and Hub capabilities, review proposed schemas and specifications for product completeness, and resolve functional questions during delivery.
• Support the transition to machine readable Standards and agentic build / service desk requirements
• Partner with the CIPO / CTO and engineering teams on feasibility, sequencing, testing and release readiness without taking ownership of technical architecture, API security design, coding or Hub operations.
• Coordinate consultation and change control with relevant regulators and market participants; document decisions, dependencies and impacts across sectors.

Go-to-market and ecosystem growth

• Build go-to-market plans for each proposition, including audience segmentation, positioning, launch sequencing, onboarding materials and participant communications.
• Lead product marketing content and collaborate with communications and commercial colleagues on events, campaigns, case studies and partner enablement; represent the product in industry forums.
• Work with participants to identify adoption barriers, support practical onboarding and develop partnerships and use cases that generate live usage.
• Use research and product data to track adoption, transaction activity, user experience and participant feedback; improve the roadmap and proposition accordingly.

Leadership and governance

• Manage and develop one technical product support colleague, setting clear priorities and standards across requirements, delivery support and launch.
• Present proposals, progress, risks and trade-offs to the executive team, Board and relevant committees; align pricing or commercial recommendations with Nebras governance and regulatory requirements.
• Work constructively across product, technology, operations, compliance, regulatory affairs and external delivery partners to deliver a coordinated national programme.

|Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or master's degree in related field.
• Senior product leadership / technical product experience in open banking, payments, financial services infrastructure, insurance technology, wealth technology or a closely related regulated ecosystem.

|Technical and Behavioral Skills

• Demonstrated ability to turn complex market and regulatory needs into strong propositions, functional requirements, business rules and delivery priorities.
• Working fluency in APIs, data models, schemas, consent and developer journeys, with the judgment to challenge technical proposals while respecting specialist engineering ownership.
• Experience taking B2B(2C) or ecosystem products to market, building partnerships, supporting adoption and measuring product outcomes.
• Credibility with financial institutions, technology partners and regulators; strong written communication, stakeholder management and people leadership.
• Experience in more than one of the five product domains, or in a multi-sector national infrastructure programme, would be particularly valuable.

|What you can expect from us

• Modern work environment with level of flexibility.
• Dynamic and motivated team of colleagues working towards achieving UAE National Objectives.
• Competitive compensation package, including annual bonus and additional benefits like child educational allowance and annual flight tickets (where eligible).