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
This role is a strategic leadership position accountable for shaping and executing Personal & Private Banking (PPB’s) payments agenda to deliver commercial growth, customer-centric innovation, and operational excellence. The incumbent will act as a key influencer and partner across Group Payments, Technology, Product, and Payments Strategy, ensuring payment capabilities are scalable, future-ready, and tightly aligned to PPB’s growth priorities. By driving high-impact initiatives, unlocking value-added services, and positioning PPB as a leader in payments modernization, the role enables new revenue streams, resolves customer pain points, and strengthens PPB’s competitive edge in South Africa and across Pan-African markets.Job Description
Strategic EVPAs Senior Manager: Payments Operations & Strategy, you will:
• Lead industry-defining initiatives that transform customer payment experiences and deliver measurable business outcomes.
• Collaborate with high-performing teams across Group Payments, Technology, Product, and Strategy to design and scale integrated, modern payment solutions.
• Unlock commercial value by growing transaction volume and value, expanding payments VAS (value-added services), and influencing executive forums (e.g., Payments Council).
•Shape domestic and cross-border payment propositions for PPB and pan-African markets
• Transform at scale, from PayShap and RTC to wallets, ISO 20022 modernization, tokenization, SWIFT, Remittance cross-border modernization and emerging platforms such as Payments-as-a-Service,
• Elevate PPB’s leadership position across South Africa and pan-African markets through ecosystem partnerships and thought leadership.
Strategic Impact Areas• Commercial Growth: Drive sustained increases in P2P transaction volume and value; develop scalable propositions and pricing that expand revenue.
• Customer-Centric Innovation: Remove friction, reduce failure and dispute rates, and deliver seamless experiences across PayShap, RTC, wallets, card, and EFT.
• Scalability & Delivery Excellence: Ensure PPB’s payment capabilities are built for scale and reuse across channels, segments, and countries.
• Industry Leadership: Shape key themes in the payments ecosystem and influence decision-making in strategic forums and external industry bodies.
Key Responsibilities1) Payments Strategy & Ecosystem Leadership
- Define and execute PPB’s P2P payments strategy aligned to growth objectives and customer needs.
- Partner with Group Payments, Product Owners, Digital Technology, Integrated Channels, Business Banking, and Rest of Africa to deliver integrated, scalable payment solutions.
- Identify industry trends and lead the implementation of strategic initiatives that position PPB competitively.
2) Commercial Growth & Value-Added Services (Strategic Influence)
- Influence strategic priorities by partnering with Product Owners and Business Heads to embed payments as a core driver of PPB’s growth agenda.
- Shape commercial strategies that unlock new revenue streams through differentiated VAS (wallets, bill-pay, prepaid, loyalty) and compelling customer propositions.
- Lead executive-level conversations to position payments as a CX and profitability differentiator, ensuring alignment of BOW(payment projects) strategic change investments to high-impact opportunities.
- Champion scalability of payment solutions across PPB and pan-African markets in collaboration with Group and Integrated Channels.
- Identify and close ecosystem gaps that limit commercial potential; mobilize partnerships and technology to deliver end-to-end solutions.
- Govern prioritization frameworks for payments initiatives to direct resources to the highest-value outcomes.
Qualifications & Experience• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Economics, Technology, Information Systems, or related field; postgraduate qualification advantageous.
• 8–10+ years in payments, banking, or fintech, with proven delivery across P2P, SWIFT, Remittance, PayShap, RTC, wallets, EFT, and card ecosystems.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into measurable commercial outcomes (volume, value, revenue, adoption).
Education
Bachelor's Degree: Information TechnologyAbsa 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
Top Skills
What We Do
Absa Group Limited (Absa) has forged a new way of getting things done, driven by bravery and passion, with the readiness to realise growth on the African continent and beyond.
We’re a truly African brand, inspired by the people we serve in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We also have representative offices in China, Namibia, Nigeria and the United States, as well as securities entities in the United Kingdom and the United States, along with technology support colleagues in the Czech Republic.
