Payment Systems Business Analyst / Product Owner
About the role
We are seeking an experienced Payment Systems Business Analyst / Product Owner to lead the requirements gathering, implementation, and ongoing management of our payment processor and gateway solutions.
Responsibilities
Serve as the primary point of contact for eliciting, documenting, and validating business and technical requirements for new payment processor and gateway implementations.
Conduct stakeholder interviews, workshops, and process-mapping sessions with finance, operations, engineering, compliance, and customer experience teams.
Translate complex business needs into clear, actionable user stories, use cases, process flows, and functional specifications.
Define and document end-to-end payment flows including authorization, capture, settlement, refunds, chargebacks, and reconciliation.
Identify and document integration requirements across internal systems and external payment vendors.
Own and maintain the payment systems product backlog; prioritize features and enhancements in alignment with business goals, compliance requirements, and technical feasibility.
Partner with development teams through sprint planning, grooming, and retrospectives.
Define and track key success metrics (authorization rates, decline rates, processing costs, uptime, transaction throughput) and drive continuous improvement.
Lead discovery and evaluation of payment processors, gateways, and Payment Service Providers (PSPs); support RFP/RFI processes and vendor selection.
Manage end-to-end implementation lifecycle: scoping, vendor onboarding, integration design, UAT, go-live readiness, and post-launch stabilization.
Collaborate with engineering and QA teams to define integration specifications (REST APIs, webhooks, tokenization, 3DS2, etc.) and validate implementations.
Coordinate with payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) and acquiring banks as needed during certifications and compliance reviews.
Monitor payment platform performance and proactively identify issues, degradations, or optimization opportunities.
Manage change requests, platform upgrades, and new feature rollouts in partnership with vendors and internal teams.
Conduct regular vendor reviews and performance benchmarking; escalate issues and drive resolution SLAs.
Support A/B testing and optimization initiatives to improve authorization rates, reduce friction, and lower processing costs.
Define and own operational reporting frameworks that provide visibility into payment health across all channels and vendors.
Partner with data and analytics teams to build dashboards and operational scorecards that surface actionable insights for finance, operations, and technology leadership.
Conduct regular deep-dive analyses on payment trends, failure patterns, and vendor performance to identify root causes and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
Translate operational data into concrete product and process enhancements — such as intelligent retry logic, decline recovery flows, dynamic routing rules, and fee optimization strategies.
Lead post-incident reviews for payment outages or degradations; document findings and drive systemic improvements to prevent recurrence.
Benchmark payment operations against industry standards and competitive best practices; develop business cases for enhancements with measurable ROI.
Collaborate with finance and accounting teams to streamline reconciliation, reduce exceptions, and improve end-of-day settlement accuracy across multi-vendor environments.
Champion a culture of operational excellence by establishing feedback loops between front-line operations teams and the product roadmap.
Ensure all payment solutions adhere to PCI-DSS, PSD2, GDPR, and other applicable regulatory and security standards.
Partner with legal, compliance, and security teams to assess risk, implement controls, and maintain audit-ready documentation.
Stay current on evolving payment regulations, network mandates, and industry trends (real-time payments, BNPL, digital wallets, open banking).
Produce clear status reports, roadmaps, and executive summaries for senior leadership and business stakeholders.
Act as the subject matter expert (SME) on payment systems across the organization, fielding questions and providing guidance to cross-functional teams.
Qualifications
8–10+ years of experience as a Business Analyst, Product Owner, or Product Manager with a focus on payment systems, fintech, or financial services.
Demonstrated experience leading at least one full-cycle payment processor or payment gateway implementation.
Proven hands-on experience with retail point-of-sale (POS) payment systems, including in-store terminal integrations, card-present transactions, EMV/chip, contactless (NFC), and POS middleware platforms.
Multi-channel payments expertise spanning in-store POS, e-commerce, mobile, kiosk, and call center — with the ability to design and document unified commerce payment flows across all channels.
Mobile POS (mPOS) experience with solutions such as tablet-based POS, mobile card readers, and associate-facing mobile checkout tools used in retail and field service environments.
Mobile payments knowledge including in-app payments, mobile web checkout, push provisioning, and mobile-first payment UX design considerations.
Digital wallet expertise across consumer wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) and merchant/closed-loop wallets; understanding of tokenization, device account numbers (DANs), and wallet provisioning flows.
Payment widgets experience — requirements gathering and oversight for embeddable, hosted, or iFrame-based payment UI components designed to streamline checkout while maintaining PCI scope reduction.
Experience with payment gateway/processor APIs (REST, JSON, ISO 8583 or similar) and the ability to work effectively with technical teams on integration design.
Strong understanding of PCI-DSS compliance requirements and data security best practices.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
Compensation
The pay range for this role is $101,000.00 - $154,900.00 annually. In addition to competitive pay, we offer Paid Time Off, 401(k), an Employee Assistance Program, Good Sam Roadside Assistance, discounts, paid parental leave (if eligibility is met), Tuition Reimbursement (if eligibility is met), and on-the-job training opportunities. Full-time associates are offered a comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, vision, and more!