Executive Payments Strategy

Absa Group; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading African bank is seeking a senior professional to shape its Retail Payments Strategy. This role demands extensive experience in banking innovation, stakeholder engagement, and strategic leadership to drive growth and efficiency in customer payment solutions. Candidates must possess a postgraduate degree and a proven track record in managing complex projects in a regulated environment.

Qualifications

• Experience in developing integrated customer-centric solutions.
• 10+ years in relevant field with 5+ years in people management.
• Exposure to digital transformation and data-driven decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead Retail Payments Strategy aligned to national and global payments.
• Develop integrated payment strategies and monitor performance.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks and risk management.

Skills

Strategic Thinking

Leadership

Stakeholder Engagement

Communication

Adaptability

Innovativeness

Education

Post Graduate Degree: Honours Degree, Post Graduate Diploma

Job description

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

10+ years in a specific capability of importance to the bank, including a track record of 5 years in a people management position in a large enterprise. Experience must include developing integrated customer-centric product or service solutions or corporate practice development while working with and managing stakeholders across business and/or functional areas and budget management. Exposure to digital transformation and data-driven decision-making is preferred.Demonstrated success in leading payment strategy or innovation in banking, fintech, or digital platforms.Experience in engaging executive stakeholders in shaping and delivering complex payments strategies. Post Graduate Degree: Honours Degree, Post Graduate Diploma and Professional Qualifications [NQF8]

Job Description

Shape and drive an integrated cross-rail and franchise payment strategy for Personal and Private Banking, that is aligned to the local and global Payment’s landscape. Design and facilitate strategic payments and performance agenda to inform strategy development, execution and management in collaboration within the Group Payments ecosystem. Leverage payment research and insights to identify strategic payment opportunities and provide directional payment advisory capability to Customer, Product and Channels areas.

KEY FOCUS AREAS

• Develop and lead the integrated Retail Payments Strategy across products, segments, and channels to deliver growth, efficiency, and innovation.
• Align the bank’s payments agenda with the South African national payments’ roadmap and regulatory developments.
• Collaborate with Product, Customer, Technology, and Digital teams to ensure coherence in payments product development and strategy.
• Identify and evaluate new payment innovations, infrastructure changes, and emerging trends to inform strategic positioning.
• Represent Retail in enterprise and industry payments strategy forums and influence the broader payments agenda.
• Shape the transformation of payments capabilities to enable next-gen, customer-centric, and cost-effective payment solutions.
• Drive strategic performance reviews of the payment’s portfolio across rails (card, account-to-account, real-time, mobile, QR, etc.).
• Facilitate executive-level decision-making by providing insight and thought leadership on payment developments and trade-offs.
• Enable monetisation and competitive advantage through differentiated payment propositions.
• Ensure risk, compliance, and governance requirements are embedded in the design and execution of payment strategy.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Strategy Formulation and Execution

• Define and execute a Retail Payments Strategy aligned to national and global payments landscapes.
• Lead strategy development across payment rails, customer segments, and business units.
• Guide investment decisions and prioritisation of payment initiatives based on impact and feasibility.
• Translate long-term strategic objectives into aligned business plans, execution roadmaps and key milestone measurements for the business area.
• Cascade strategic goals and ensure alignment between business unit vision and functional implementation priorities, setting clear short, medium and long-term milestones.
• Develop effective partnerships to enable business performance and contribute to sector-wide influence aligned with strategic initiatives.
• Respond to emerging policy and regulatory trends by adapting operational strategy and ensuring compliance alignment.
• Track execution progress against key strategic initiatives and intervene to correct course where needed.
• Support transformation initiatives through structured programme delivery and change management practices.
• Provide expert advice and support in operating model, strategy, and value chain formulation and delivery alignment.
• Identify practices and technologies that provide competitive advantage and enable knowledge sharing and integration of practice areas.
• Undertake analysis of management and specialist information and guide reporting tool implementation to improve decision-making quality.

Customer Primacy

Ensure customer needs, preferences, and payment behaviours are central to strategy development.

Shape seamless, secure, and inclusive customer payment experiences across physical and digital touchpoints

Interpret market and customer insights to inform operational plans and prioritise capability investments

• Provide expertise in designing integrated frameworks to embed service excellence across payment rails.

Sustainable Growth

• Identify new growth opportunities in payments revenue streams, embedded finance, and partnerships. Monitor and optimise performance of payment portfolios to ensure profitability and revenue growth
• Work with business partners to define and execute on growth strategies and ecosystem initiatives.
• Mobilise functional teams to deliver growth targets and embed performance accountability.
• Monitor growth delivery, resolving barriers and reinforcing strategic objectives at operational levels.
• Formulate and develop multi-function operating frameworks that contribute to sustainable growth through payments

Client-Driven Innovation and Change

• Scan for global and local payments trends and innovations.
• Shape a proactive innovation agenda that enables payment modernisation and future readiness.
• Partner with digital and technology teams to design and deliver new payment capabilities.
• Monitor competitive landscape and identify opportunities to improve products, services, or operations.
• Drive continuous improvement and innovation within the team to enhance customer outcomes.
• Influence and communicate across all levels of the business to minimise resistance to change and ensure onboarding of target audiences.
• Scan the external environment to investigate alternative delivery models and offer innovative advice for competitive advantage.
• Drive change management activities across a single value chain for optimal adoption of change.

Leading Talent

• Build capability in payments strategy, innovation, and regulatory insight within the team and across Retail.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive strategic clarity and engagement on payments.
• Act as a thought leader and coach on payments across the organisation. Embed people processes and values into business routines, reinforcing a strong leadership culture.
• Create inclusive team environments that support performance, wellbeing, and growth.
• Address escalated people issues and ensure application of performance and development processes.
• Develop future leaders through mentorship, stretch assignments, and tailored development experiences.

Operational Effectiveness

• Lead performance tracking and reporting for the payment’s strategy and portfolio.
• Define KPIs to measure strategic progress, adoption, and value realisation.
• Streamline decision-making and operating rhythm for payments forums.
• Operationalise strategic goals into functional plans with clear deliverables, timelines, scorecards to enable effective tracking of business performance
• Set appropriate financial and other resourcing plans to enable business performance, tracking against budgets and investments for both current and long-term strategic goals.
• Represent the business area in operational forums and with delivery partners.
• Leverage data insights to improve operational effectiveness and customer outcomes.
• Continuously improve processes for agility, quality, and alignment with customer needs and digital tools.
• Identify problems and formulate alternate solutions to resolve value chain conflicts.
• Provide expert advice on operating model, strategy, value chain formulation, and business controls/governance frameworks.

Digital Adoption

• Leverage technology to drive frictionless, secure, and intelligent payments infrastructure.
• Integrate payments strategy into broader digital and platform strategies.
• Promote adoption of real-time, mobile, and embedded payments.
• Execute digital initiatives and promote adoption of technologies that improve efficiency and user experience.

Good Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements in payments strategy execution.
• Manage payments risks including fraud, cyber, AML, and operational resilience.
• Lead Retail’s response to regulatory changes impacting payments.
• Implement governance, risk, and compliance frameworks in business processes and team routines.
• Promote risk awareness and lead the response to regulatory changes and emerging issues.

• Enable the development and implementation of integrated corporate governance frameworks in areas of specialisation such as payments
• Influence the implementation of effective internal controls systems and corporate governance practices for payments

Data Monetisation

• Leverage payments data to generate insights for commercial and product development.
• Collaborate with analytics teams to build real-time visibility into payment flows and performance.
• Support customer segmentation, pricing, and targeting using payments data. Apply data insights to support business planning and decision-making in the business area.

Stakeholder Management

• Engage with Exco, Group Payments stakeholders, regulators, and industry bodies to influence and align payment priorities.
• Coordinate across Retail business units to ensure strategic coherence and shared execution.
• Represent the Retail Bank in payments innovation and strategy ecosystems.
• Manage relationships with key stakeholders to support aligned delivery and issue resolution.
• Ensure stakeholder expectations are managed and engagement is consistent with transformation priorities.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Education/ Qualification:

• Post Graduate Degree: Honours Degree, Post Graduate Diploma and Professional Qualifications [NQF8]

Field of Study:

• Finance, Business Strategy, Economics, Digital Payments, Technology Management, or related fields. Postgraduate qualification preferred.

Work Experience:

• 10 years+ in a specific capability of importance to the bank, including a track record of 5 years in a people management position in a large enterprise.
• Experience must include developing integrated customer-centric product or service solutions or corporate practice development while working with and managing stakeholders across business and/or functional areas and budget management.
• Exposure to digital transformation and data-driven decision-making is preferred.
• Demonstrated success in leading payment strategy or innovation in banking, fintech, or digital platforms.
• Experience in engaging executive stakeholders in shaping and delivering complex payments strategies.

COMPETENCIES

Leadership Competencies:

• Strategic Thinking
• Business Acumen
• Communication
• Influence
• Leadership
• Creativity and Innovation
• Delivering Results
• Adaptability
• Collaboration

Knowledge and Skills:

• Payment’s ecosystem and market infrastructure
• Retail and emerging payment rail strategy
• Regulatory and national payments frameworks
• Product and customer strategy alignment
• Strategic performance management
• Payment’s innovation and trends
• Stakeholder engagement and influence
• Risk, compliance, and governance in payments

Education

Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Business, Commerce and Management Studies

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised