Head, Transaction Operations

Job Summary

The Head, Transaction Operations leads the processing and operational health of the national payment rail operated by NPICTT — the real-time and near-real-time processing of payments as they flow across the scheme’s channels, and the monitoring, control and first response that keep the rail available, performant and correct.

The role owns the transaction lifecycle from initiation to hand-off for settlement, the operational monitoring and observability of the national switch and payment services, and the detection, triage and resolution of processing incidents. Because the national rail is expected to operate continuously — including at weekends and on public holidays — and because a processing failure is felt immediately by citizens, participants and the State, the role operates to the standards of an operations function within critical national infrastructure.

It works closely with Technology Operations, which owns the underlying infrastructure and switch platform, and with Settlement and Reconciliation, to which it hands transactions for settlement, and coordinates as principal with participant financial institutions and the scheme technology partner on processing matters.

This function was formerly described as Payment Processing. Main Responsibilities Transaction Processing Operations

• Own the day-to-day processing operations of the national rail across all channels — the 868Pay real-time scheme, the Government payment channel, and the acceptance and disbursement services — ensuring transactions are processed accurately, completely and within service levels.
• Manage the transaction lifecycle operationally from initiation through authorisation, routing and switching to hand-off for settlement, ensuring correct handling of successful, failed, reversed, duplicated and timed-out transactions.
• Operate the processing schedules, channel operations and operational controls of the scheme, and maintain processing procedures, run-books and controls.
• Ensure operational readiness for new channels, participants and payment products entering processing. Operational Monitoring, Availability and Observability
• Own the operational monitoring and observability of the national switch and payment services — availability, transaction success rates, latency, throughput and queue health — through the Company’s monitoring and observability capability, in conjunction with Technology Operations.
• Define and monitor operational thresholds and alerts that give early warning of processing degradation, and maintain the associated response run-books.
• Drive the national rail toward its availability and performance targets and report on operational health.
• Operate, or coordinate, a payments operations-monitoring capability with coverage appropriate to a continuously operating rail. Incident and Exception Management
• Lead detection, triage, first and second response, and resolution of processing incidents affecting the national rail, coordinating with Technology Operations, Systems Integration and participants on cross-boundary incidents.
• Manage transaction-level exceptions — stuck, failed, unmatched or disputed transactions — through to resolution or correct hand-off to Settlement and Reconciliation.
• Maintain the processing incident and exception logs, conduct operational root-cause analysis and drive permanent fixes.
• Support major-incident management and systemic-disruption response for the rail, including participant and regulator communication where required, and coordinate an operational on-call capability. Risk, Compliance and Controls
• Ensure processing operations comply with scheme rules, operational controls, regulatory requirements and governance standards.
• Support transaction monitoring, fraud-detection operations and operational-risk mitigation at the processing layer.
• Escalate material processing risks, systemic incidents, control weaknesses or compliance concerns to the Manager, Payments.
• Support audits, operational reviews and compliance assessments relating to processing, and support business continuity and recovery for processing operations. Stakeholder Coordination
• Coordinate as principal with participant financial institutions, the scheme technology partner and payment partners on processing operations and incidents.
• Work with Technology Operations, Systems Integration, Settlement and Reconciliation, Risk and Compliance to sustain the processing-to-settlement pipeline.
• Support onboarding and operational readiness of participants and channels from a processing standpoint, and maintain processing operational records and documentation. Reporting, Performance and Improvement
• Prepare processing-performance, availability and incident reporting, KPI updates and dashboards for the Manager, Payments.
• Monitor processing metrics and trends and drive improvement in availability, success rates and operational efficiency.
• Support automation, straight-through processing and continuous improvement in processing operations.
• Line-manage, develop and hold accountable the Transaction Operations team.

Requirements

Person Profile The ideal candidate is a payments-operations leader with experience in payment processing, transaction operations, a payments or technology network operations center, or real-time systems operations, ideally within a payment scheme, switch, bank or payment service provider running high-volume real-time processing.

The individual possesses strong incident-management capability, sound operational judgment under pressure, and a command of monitoring and observability practice, and is comfortable leading a function that operates continuously. Strong leadership, coordination, analytical and communication skills are essential, together with a firm commitment to operational reliability, control and the public interest.

Academic Qualifications and Experience Academic Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Administration, Finance, Operations Management, Engineering or a related discipline from a recognized institution.
• A Master’s degree in a related field, or a management qualification, is considered an asset. Professional Certifications (preferred)
• Certification in payments operations, banking operations or financial services.
• Certification in IT service management, such as ITIL, or in operations or incident management.
• Certification in project management or risk management. Experience
• A minimum of five (5) to seven (7) years in payment or transaction operations, payments or technology network operations, or technology operations within a transaction environment.
• A minimum of three (3) to five (5) years in a supervisory or leadership role overseeing operations teams.
• Demonstrated experience of high-volume real-time processing operations, incident management and operational monitoring and observability tooling.
• Experience within a payment scheme, switch, real-time rail, bank or payment service provider is strongly preferred, as is experience operating a continuously available service.
• Strong understanding of the transaction lifecycle, operational controls, payment operations and compliance requirements.