Director, Senior IT Project Manager - Payment (JRI-6812)

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

The Japan Research Institute (JRI) Limited, a subsidiary of SMBC Group, Singapore, seeks an experienced Delivery Lead to own end-to-end payments projects. You will align with architecture, define delivery frameworks, and supervise cross-functional teams through design, build, test, release and post-implementation support.

You will lead executive reporting, manage vendor delivery and ensure a robust SDLC across global and local stakeholders in a highly regulated financial environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in IT, CS or equivalent.
• Minimum 10 years senior IT project delivery experience in financial services.
• Strong domain expertise in payments and banking systems.
• Proven SDLC management including design, code governance, testing and release.
• Excellent leadership, negotiation and stakeholder skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the full delivery strategy for payments projects aligned with enterprise roadmap.
• Define delivery frameworks, SDLC gates, release governance and quality controls.
• Lead SIT/UAT planning, defect triage, tracking and closure ensuring testing completeness.
• Oversee release planning, cutover, dry-runs and post-release stabilization.
• Establish operational readiness including monitoring and resilience testing.
• Manage vendor/offshore teams, governance, KPIs and quality benchmarks.
• Provide executive-level reporting on KPIs, milestones, risks and scope changes.
• Coordinate with bank IT PMs, operations, platform teams and external vendors.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Communication

Project delivery

SDLC

Negotiation

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in IT/CS

Tools

Remittance systems integration

API integration

Middleware

Job description

The Japan Research Institute (JRI) Limited is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) Group. SMBC Group is a Tokyo-based bank holding company that is ranked among the largest 25 banks globally by assets under management. JRI provides comprehensive, highly value-added information services through the coordinated application of its 3 functions. i.e. information systems, consulting and think-tank. As a system integrator, JRI offers services in IT strategy planning, implementation and outsourcing to a broad range of industries and activities. JRI Singapore currently supports the overall IT functions of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in Asia Pacific Region.

Responsibilities

• Own the full delivery strategy for Payments projects, aligning with enterprise architecture and long-term technology roadmap.
• Define and enforce delivery frameworks including engineering practices, SDLC gates, release governance, documentation standards, and quality controls.
• Drive technical delivery excellence with complete traceability from business requirement → design → source code → testing → release.
• Supervise solution design, detailed technical specs, code repository governance, coding standards, peer reviews, and test coverage strategy.
• Lead SIT/UAT planning, defect triage, tracking, closure, and ensure testing completeness across all modules.
• Oversee release planning, cutover strategy, dry-runs, deployment approval, and post-release stabilization.
• Establish operational readiness including monitoring, capacity planning, resilience testing, and fallback/rollback procedures.
• Manage vendor and offshore team delivery governance, productivity KPIs, and quality benchmarking.
• Lead executive-level reporting with structured updates: KPIs, milestones, risks, dependencies, and scope changes.

Project Delivery Management

• Lead projects from initiation to closure ensuring compliance with requirements, timelines, budgets, and quality.
• Update the WBS, set milestones, and manage progress appropriately.
• Manage tasks by prioritizing and adjusting the scope as appropriate.
• Create detailed project plans including scope, timeline, budget forecasts, and resource allocation.
• Manage full SDLC lifecycle including requirements, design, build, testing, release, deployment, and post-implementation support.
• Coordinate and govern Dev, SA, QA, Migration, and vendor delivery teams.
• Monitor progress, manage risks, elevate issues, and enforce mitigation actions.
• Ensure system delivery activities remain aligned to overall master program plan.
• Maintain delivery discipline through structured oversight, quality gates, and documentation reviews.
• Ability to develop clear narratives and visual materials to effectively communicate complex topics to diverse stakeholders

System Integration

• Proven experience integrating vendor products into banking environments, with a strong understanding of end to end system architecture and dependencies.

Delivery strategy and change management

• Ability to define and maintain delivery strategy amidst evolving interfaces and requirements, ensuring changes are effectively tracked, managed, and incorporated into the overall project execution.

Vendor and stakeholder Coordination

• Collaborate with Bank’s IT PM, project teams, operation team, platform teams, vendors, external systems (channels, accounts, etc.) involved in remittances and other projects for alignment.
• Communicate delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and decisions to senior management.
• Support Delivery Program Manager with detailed delivery analysis and reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple vendor teams and coordinate cross regional stakeholders to drive testing and delivery outcomes.

Team Leadership & Resource Management

• Lead all technical teams (applications teams, infrastructure teams, security teams.etc), project teams and vendors ensuring high-performance culture and accountability.
• Provide clear direction, prioritization, and support to ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and agreed quality standards
• Drive collaboration, transparency, and strong cross-functional engagement.
• Ensure consistent engineering standards across all delivery locations.

Quality & Compliance Assurance

• Build strong project management disciplines and governance, including planning, risk management, budget controls, issue escalations and stakeholder management.
• Ensure compliance with bank’s IT governance, audit, and risk policies.
• Supervise quality assurance across design, development, testing, and release.
• Participate in post-implementation improvement cycles and lessons learned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or equivalent.
• Minimum 10 years of senior-level IT project delivery experience in financial services, preferably in payments.
• Strong domain expertise in corporate banking, cross-border payments, and payment system integrations.
• Proven experience managing full SDLC including design, source code governance, testing coverage, and release cycles.
• Strong leadership, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent communication and executive presentation skills.
• Track record of leading complex multi-team, multi-vendor technology projects to successful completion.
• Ability to review and quality check deliverables (requirements definition documents, design documents, test specifications) to discover and correct deficiencies and errors
• Knowledge of the technical configuration and integration methods of remittance systems (API integration, message formats, middleware, etc.)
• Basic knowledge of financial industry regulations and compliance, and understanding of unique quality and security requirements