Principal Business Insights Analyst- Payments

Citizens’ Consumer Deposits team is seeking a Principal Business Analyst who combines strategic thinking with strong analytical skills to tackle some of the company’s most critical challenges. This role is ideal for someone passionate about leveraging data to drive actionable insights, influence decision-making, and shape innovative customer experiences. The role also brings a strong emphasis on payments analytics and business case development to support growth, profitability, and customer engagement across deposit and payment products.

Key Responsibilities

Data Analysis & Insights

• Develop deep expertise in customer, business, and payments data (e.g., transaction behavior, card usage, digital payments, ACH/wire activity), as well as underlying processes, to uncover opportunities and inform strategic decisions.
• Use data to identify business challenges and opportunities through advanced analytics, leading the development of strategic and tactical recommendations.
• Drive analyses & targeted insights to inform the design and development of new customer experiences, including payments journeys, digital wallet adoption, and transaction engagement strategies.
• Accelerate insights delivery by automating routine analytical processes for faster responses to foundational business questions.
• Apply payments analytics to understand spend patterns, customer segmentation, payment channel preferences, and revenue drivers (interchange, fees, and balances).

Performance Measurement & Optimization

• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress, highlight opportunities, and influence decision-making across teams, including payments KPIs such as transaction volume, activation, spend, retention, and unit economics.
• Shape test-and-learn agendas by recommending optimal test designs, measurement strategies, and optimization approaches.
• Evaluate performance of payments initiatives, pricing strategies, and customer engagement programs to drive continuous optimization.

Strategy & Business Planning

• Build robust, data-driven business cases for new initiatives, articulating potential benefits, risks, and prioritization considerations, including ROI modeling, scenario analysis, and sensitivity testing.
• Develop business cases for payments-related investments (e.g., new capabilities, partnerships, pricing strategies, and customer incentives) grounded in financial and operational impact.
• Partner with Finance and Product teams to align on assumptions, forecasts, and value realization for strategic initiatives.
• Manage competing priorities across projects and programs, balancing short-term deliverables with long-term objectives.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Communication

• Partner across departments—including Data, Finance, Operations, Marketing, Payments, and Modeling—to improve quality, volume, service, and profitability.
• Act as a bridge between payments, deposits, and broader consumer banking teams to ensure alignment on strategy and execution.
• Communicate insights effectively, translating complex analyses into clear, compelling stories tailored to diverse audiences, including executive leadership.
• Champion Agile principles to support Citizens’ operating model.

Qualifications & Preferred Skills

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s or MBA preferred) in Business or a quantitative field such as Finance, Economics, Statistics, Analytics, Data Science, Math, Engineering, or Physical Sciences
• 3+ years of experience in business analysis, including turning ambiguous business problems and raw data into useful insights by applying critical thinking and data programming skills
• Proficient in SQL; Python experience strongly preferred
• A solid understanding of statistical models and machine learning methods and algorithms
• Experience with payments data (card, ACH, wire, digital wallets) and a strong understanding of payments economics (e.g., interchange, fees, transaction cost drivers) preferred
• Demonstrated ability to build and communicate business cases, including financial modeling, ROI analysis, and scenario planning
• A strong sense of intellectual curiosity and ability to thrive and deliver value in an entrepreneurial working environment
• Strong conceptual thinking skills and a strong quantitative orientation
• Excellent written and oral communication credentials, coupled with ability to influence and drive agreement through interpersonal skill and ability to compellingly organize facts
• Ability to work in a high-performance professional environment, with quick turn-around and evolving priorities, including flexibility to take on new roles and responsibilities as needed
• Commitment to intellectual rigor and observance of compliance and data privacy controls
• A disciplined approach to making decisions, problem solving and setting expectations based on analytics
• Experience working with financial or demographic datasets (preferred)
• Experience in consulting (preferred)

Hours & Work Schedule

• Hours per Week: 40
• Work Schedule: Monday-Friday
• Hybrid: 4 days per week onsite in an approved Citizens office hub, 1 day remote
• Locations where this role could sit: Johnston, RI; Westwood, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Newark, DE

Pay Transparency
The salary range for this position is $130,000 -- $160,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is 
based on various factors including but not limited to the budget, work location, and relevant skills and experience.
We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work 
arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid 
time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit 
https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits 

Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.

Equal Employment and Opportunity Employer

Job Applicant Data Privacy Policy

Background Check

Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the candidate successfully passing a background check, which may include initial credit, motor vehicle record, public record, prior employment verification, and criminal background checks. Results of the background check are individually reviewed based upon legal requirements imposed by our regulators and with consideration of the nature and gravity of the background history and the job offered. Any offer of employment will include further information.