Product Owner – Cards & Payments – Banking
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (role can be based full-time in Riyadh; they would consider it if you are travelling from outside Saudi Arabia: 2 weeks in Riyadh and 2 weeks remote from hime per month)
The Opportunity
We are looking for an experienced Senior Product Owner with strong Cards & Payments domain expertise to join a major digital banking transformation programme.
This is not a generalist banking Product Owner position. Candidates must have significant hands-on product experience across Cards and Payments, ideally covering the end-to-end card lifecycle and associated customer journeys.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the product vision, roadmap and backlog for Cards & Payments capabilities.
- Lead product requirements across the end-to-end card lifecycle, from application and issuance through activation, transaction processing, servicing and closure.
- Define and prioritise epics, features, user stories and acceptance criteria.
- Work closely with Cards, Payments, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Technology and Architecture stakeholders.
- Drive digital card journeys across mobile and online banking channels.
- Define requirements relating to card authorisation, clearing, settlement, transaction processing and reconciliation.
- Support capabilities including card issuance, activation, PIN management, limits, controls, replacement, renewal and dispute management.
- Work closely with engineering, architecture, UX, QA and delivery teams throughout the product lifecycle.
- Manage dependencies between card platforms, payment systems, core banking and digital channels.
- Support UAT, releases and post-production improvements.
- Ensure Cards & Payments products meet relevant regulatory, security and compliance requirements.
Experience
- Strong experience as a Product Owner / Senior Product Owner within Banking.
- Significant, recent experience specifically within Cards & Payments.
- Strong understanding of the end-to-end card lifecycle.
- Experience across debit and/or credit card products.
- Knowledge of key card processes including:
- Card application and onboarding
- Card issuance and activation
- Physical and virtual cards
- Authorisation and transaction processing
- Clearing and settlement
- Card controls and transaction limits
- PIN management
- Card replacement and renewal
- Disputes, chargebacks and refunds
- Lost/stolen card journeys
- Understanding of Visa and/or Mastercard card schemes and associated processes.
- Experience delivering digital Cards & Payments capabilities within mobile or internet banking.
- Strong experience managing product backlogs and translating business requirements into epics, user stories and acceptance criteria.
- Experience working within Agile/Scrum delivery environments.
- Strong stakeholder management skills across both business and technology teams.
Highly Desirable
- Experience with card issuing and/or card processing platforms.
- Knowledge of payment gateways, payment switches and payment processing.
- Experience with 3D Secure, tokenisation and digital wallets.
- Exposure to Apple Pay, Google Pay or similar wallet integrations.
- Understanding of PCI DSS and card security requirements.
- Experience with APIs, microservices and modern digital banking architectures.
- Experience working for a digital bank, challenger bank or major Cards transformation programme.
- Previous experience working with clients or teams in Saudi Arabia or the Middle East.
