Payments Operations Analyst — Process Improvement

First American; Santa Ana (CA); On-site; USD 74,000 - 99,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

401k

PTO / paid sick leave

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

First American is seeking an experienced Business Analyst to support our Payments operations across ACH, wires, instant payments, and more. You will analyze processes, develop reporting and dashboards, and help implement new payment capabilities.

You will collaborate with Payments Operations, Risk/Compliance, Treasury Management, Product, Technology, Finance, and other business areas to drive improvements and scalability for current and future payment rails.

Qualifications

• BA/BS degree or equivalent work experience.
• 2-5 years of directly related experience in payments, banking operations, Treasury Management, business analysis, financial services, or a similar field.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to investigate complex issues, identify root causes, and recommend practical solutions.
• Ability to understand complex transaction flows and operational processes.
• Strong ability to organize, analyze, interpret, and present data effectively.
• Advanced Microsoft Office skills, particularly Excel.

Responsibilities

• Develop a strong understanding of the bank's end-to-end payment processes across ACH, domestic and international wires, instant payments, and other current or future payment rails.
• Analyze payment workflows to identify operational gaps, inefficiencies, manual processes, capacity constraints, control opportunities, and areas for improvement.
• Analyze payment volumes, values, exceptions, returns, rejects, processing times, service levels, manual interventions, and other operational data to identify trends and emerging issues.
• Develop reporting, metrics, dashboards, and management information that provide visibility into payment operations, performance, capacity, and trends.
• Perform root-cause analysis of recurring payment issues to distinguish individual exceptions from broader process or operational problems.
• Evaluate processes across different payment rails to identify opportunities for greater consistency, standardization, efficiency, and scalability.
• Support payment-related process improvement initiatives from problem identification through implementation and measurement of results.
• Partner with payment program owners, Operations teams, and subject matter experts to analyze trends, processes, capacity, controls, and improvement opportunities across ACH, wires, instant payments, and other payment rails.
• Document current-state payment processes and help design improved future-state processes.
• Support the implementation of new payment capabilities, including new payment rails, services, operational processes, and significant enhancements to existing capabilities.
• Help define business and operational requirements for new or modified payment products, processes, and services.
• Assess operational readiness for new payment initiatives, including procedures, controls, staffing impacts, training, reporting, exception handling, and ongoing support requirements.
• Participate in testing and implementation of payment-related changes from a business and operational perspective.
• Develop and maintain process maps, business requirements, procedures, training materials, and other operational documentation.
• Support management in evaluating the operational impact of payment rule, regulatory, industry, product, or volume changes.
• Support payment-related audit, examination, risk assessment, and remediation activities by providing analysis, documentation, process information, and supporting data.
• Partner with the Fraud & Claims function to analyze aggregate fraud activity, losses, recoveries, and trends as part of broader payment performance analysis, without assuming ownership of individual fraud investigations or claims.
• Facilitate meetings and working sessions involving payment operations and other business partners and help drive issues and action items through resolution.
• Make recommendations to management regarding payment processes, operational capacity, reporting, controls, service delivery, and continuous improvement.

Skills

Payments operations

Data analysis

Root-cause analysis

Process improvement

Excel

Stakeholder collaboration

Payment rails knowledge

Analytical thinking

Education

BA/BS degree

Tools

Excel

Job description

First American is seeking an experienced Business Analyst to support our Payments operations across ACH, wires, instant payments, and more. You will analyze processes, develop reporting and dashboards, and help implement new payment capabilities.

You will collaborate with Payments Operations, Risk/Compliance, Treasury Management, Product, Technology, Finance, and other business areas to drive improvements and scalability for current and future payment rails.