Payment Operations (AM/AVP)

Role Overview

This position is responsible for overseeing the end-to-end processing, monitoring and governance of FAST payments and collections for the Company. The role ensures operational excellence, real-time service reliability, risk and compliance adherence, and effective coordination with internal and external stakeholders. The role will support the VP of Payment Operations in strengthening operational resilience, enhancing process efficiency, and ensuring compliance with MAS and ABS requirements.

Key Responsibilities

1. Daily Monitoring & Real-Time Operations

• Oversee all incoming and outgoing FAST credit transfers.
• Ensure transactions are executed within SLA, cutoff times, and scheme requirements.
• Monitor real-time payment queues, settlement status, and system health via FAST Gateway and MEPS+ settlement interface.
• Review and resolve transaction delays, retry failures, and ageing or pending items.
• Manage PACS.002, PACS.004, PACS.008, PACS.009 acknowledgements, rejections, and investigations.
• Ensure timely handling of notifications and alerts.

2. Exception Management & Reconciliation

• Lead investigations on rejected, returned, or failed FAST transactions.
• Perform daily reconciliation between FAST Gateway, core banking systems, settlement accounts, and suspense accounts.
• Manage duplicate payments, mis posted credits, wrong beneficiary cases, and customer recall requests.
• Escalate anomaly trends and propose preventive measures.

3. Compliance, Controls & Risk Management

• Ensure strict compliance with MAS regulations, ABS guidance, internal policies, and operational risk frameworks.
• Support internal/external audits, technology risk reviews, and process control assessments.
• Maintain up-to-date SOPs, risk assessments, and control documentation.
• Strengthen first-line controls and operational resilience.

4. System Support, Change Management & UAT

• Participate in system enhancements, regulatory upgrades, and new release deployments.
• Perform UAT, regression testing, and validation to ensure smooth implementation.
• Work closely with Technology to resolve system defects, incidents, and stability issues.
• Raise and track incident tickets, supporting root-cause analysis and corrective actions.

5. Stakeholder & Interbank Support

• Provide advisory and support to branches, call centres, corporate banking, and operations teams for FAST-related matters.
• Manage interbank queries and investigations with participating banks.
• Coordinate with ABS, NETS, BCM, and internal teams during outages, maintenance windows, or scheme-wide issues.

6. Reporting & Insights

• Prepare daily, weekly, and monthly operational reports and dashboards.
• Track volumes, success rates, exception trends, TAT, and operational KPIs.
• Provide insights and recommendations for process improvement and automation.
• Support regulatory submissions and management reporting.

Key Skills & Competencies

Technical Skills

• Strong knowledge of FAST scheme rules and ISO 20022 messaging standards.
• Experience with real-time payment systems, MEPS+, settlement platforms, and core banking interfaces.
• Solid understanding of reconciliation processes, settlement flows, and operational risk controls.

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical, investigative, and problem-solving abilities.
• Able to work effectively in a real-time, high-pressure environment.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Proactive, detail-oriented, and strong sense of ownership.

Qualifications

• Diploma or Degree in Banking, Finance, IT, or related fields.
• 3–7 years of experience in payment operations or real-time payments processing (FAST preferred).
• Familiarity with MAS regulations, ABS e-payment guidelines, and operational risk practices is an advantage.

The successful candidate can expect a competitive package that includes an attractive basic salary, annual bonus and variable bonus. Please submit your detailed resume, including expected salary and contact number.

(We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified)