Product Specialist (Capability - Payment Platform)

FirstRand Bank Limited; Johannesburg; In loco; ZAR 600.000 - 900.000; Tempo pieno

Descrizione del lavoro

FirstRand Bank Limited is seeking a motivated Product Specialist / Capability Specialist to support the Payments Platform team during modernisation initiatives. You will help define user stories, gather requirements, monitor platform performance, and build capability in modern payment technologies.

You will work across legacy-to-modern transitions, collaborate with product, engineering, and operations, and contribute to process improvements and governance around payments systems.

Competenze

• Bachelor's degree preferred in business, finance, CS, IS, economics, or related field.
• At least 2 years in fintech, banking and payments; experience in product support, business analysis, operations, or technical/analytical role is valuable.
• Experience with SQL, data analysis tools or basic API testing.
• Familiarity with Agile tools (Jira, Confluence) and understanding of API-first architectures.

Mansioni

• Support Capability Delivery: help define and prioritise user stories for modernisation phases.
• Requirements Gathering & Analysis: translate business, operational, and technical needs into clear specs for engineering teams.
• Platform Monitoring & Support: track KPIs, investigate issues, and report on migration progress and costs.
• Documentation & Knowledge Management: maintain capability docs, API specs, migration guides, and playbooks.
• Testing & Validation: support UAT, regression, and validation for modernisation releases and ensure quality and compliance.
• Stakeholder Coordination: act as a point of contact for operations, risk, compliance, and business teams.
• Market & Modernisation Awareness: research trends and identify usability and efficiency opportunities.
• Continuous Improvement: identify opportunities to reduce technical debt and improve platform usability.

Conoscenze

Data analysis

API testing basics

Agile practices

Payments domain knowledge

Formazione

Bachelor's degree in business/finance/CS/IS/economics or related

Strumenti

SQL

Jira

Confluence

Descrizione del lavoro

Job Description A motivated Product Specialist / Capability Specialist is required to support the Payments Platform team in delivering modernisation initiatives. The role supports the Technical Product Manager and delivery teams by enabling feature delivery within the new target architecture, documenting processes, monitoring platform performance during transition, and building capability in modern payment technologies. This role provides strong exposure to payments platforms, APIs, regulatory and compliance considerations, and day‑to‑day platform operations. It offers hands‑on involvement in legacy‑to‑modern transformation within a banking environment and is well suited to individuals looking to develop deep technical and product expertise while progressing toward more senior product or capability leadership roles.

Support Capability Delivery

• Help define and prioritise user stories/features for modernisation phases (e.g., API enablement, real‑time capabilities, ISO 20022 readiness, legacy decoupling).
• Participate in backlog grooming, sprint planning, Agile ceremonies and support incremental delivery of modern components.

Requirements Gathering & Analysis

• Collect/document business, operational, and technical needs related to modernisation/enhancements of payment capabilities (e.g., migration requirements, data mapping for richer standards, integration with new rails).
• Translate needs into clear specifications for engineering teams.

Platform Monitoring & Support

• Track key platform health metrics, transaction success rates, and operational KPIs.
• Help investigate and resolve production issues, working closely with engineering, operations, and support teams.
• Report on metrics for both legacy and modern environments (transaction success, uptime, migration progress, cost impacts).
• Assist in issue resolution during phased rollouts and cutovers.

Documentation & Knowledge Management

• Maintain/update capability documentation, including process flows, API specs, migration guides, capability matrices, and transition playbooks.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing across teams.

Testing & Validation

• Support UAT, regression, and validation for modernisation releases (new APIs, real‑time flows, tokenization/security enhancements).
• Help ensure releases meet quality, compliance, performance standards, and stability across old/new systems.

Stakeholder Coordination

• Act as a point of contact for day‑to‑day queries from operations, compliance, risk, and business teams.
• Facilitate communication between product, engineering, and support functions.

Market & Modernisation Awareness

• Research payment modernisation trends (cloud‑native design, ISO 20022 benefits, real‑time rails, fraud prevention in instant payments) and provide basic insights to inform discussions.
• Identify opportunities to enhance platform usability, efficiency, or compliance.
• Participate in retrospectives and process optimization initiatives.

Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to enhance modernisation processes, reduce technical debt, or improve usability in the evolving platform.

Qualification Requirement

• Bachelor's degree in business, Finance, Computer Science, Information Systems, Economics, or a related field will be preferred
• At least 2 years in fintech, banking and payments, Experience in product support, business analysis, operations, or a technical/analytical role and exposure to payment system projects (even legacy support or initial modernisation phases) is valuable
• Experience with SQL, data analysis tools or basic API testing
• Basic understanding of payment flows, legacy vs. modern architectures (e.g., API‑first, real‑time vs. batch), and standards like ISO 20022.
• Familiarity with Agile tools (Jira, Confluence).

Important Closing Date: 09/10/26

All appointments will be made in line with FirstRand Group’s Employment Equity plan.

The Bank supports the recruitment and advancement of individuals with disabilities. In order for us to fulfill this purpose, candidates can disclose their disability information on a voluntary basis. The Bank will keep this information confidential unless we are required by law to disclose this information to other parties.

The FirstRand Corporate Centre houses many of the critical functions required by a large and complex financial services group. The group's track record of delivering superior returns to shareholders has been achieved through a combination of organic growth, acquisitions, innovation and the creation of completely new businesses. The group’s purpose of delivering Shared Prosperity provides many opportunities for employees to innovate to address social and environmental challenges in our markets. All of our businesses have successful Volunteering programmes which also allow employees to adopt and support causes close to their hearts.

FirstRand provides a comprehensive range of financial services in South Africa and certain markets in broader Africa. The group also offers certain niche products and services in the UK and India. Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX), FirstRand Limited is the largest financial institution by market capitalisation in Africa. The group follows a multi‑branding approach. Its portfolio of financial services businesses includes FNB, RMB, WesBank, Ashburton Investments, Aldermore, MotoNovo and DirectAxis. Many are leaders in their respective segments and markets, offering transactional, lending, investment and insurance products and services.