Manager Product Real Time Payments

Job Description:
This role forms part of the RPP Business Support Team reporting into the Head of Real Time Payments where you will be accountable for the full product life cycle management which includes strategy ideation, development and go to market. You will in addition be responsible for the management of the operational processes of the day-to-day running of the RPP and Proxy service according to the Clearing Rules, Scheme Rules and Service Levels.

The Manager Product Real Time Payments identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfil, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality. The role requires good communication skills and solid technology knowledge to ensure all rules are applied and enable secure and efficient payment processing and data management at the PSO.

Solid people management and stakeholder engagement abilities are required for this opportunity.

You will engage with the following stakeholders:
**Internal Stakeholders**:

- Finance, Legal, Compliance, Audit, ICT
- RPP Development team
- RPP Infrastructure team
- Networks, Service Centre, Service Desk
- Enterprise Project Management Office
- Product Lifecycle Management
- Customer Lifecycle Management
- Senior Management Team

**External Stakeholders**:

- Payments Association of South Africa
- South African Reserve Bank
- SAMOS
- All bank and non-bank customers
- Fintech companies
- RPP vendors for hardware, software and testing environments

**ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES**
- Co-ordinate release schedule for enhancements and other projects and plan at least an annual release.
- Manage product forums and communicate all activities, plans and releases with broader customer base, Scheme and regulators to ensure greater inclusion.
- Co-ordinates and drives all product development, product integration and go-to-market strategy for product set to ensure that the strategy achieves the objectives of profitable growth and expansion of market share for that product and service
- Analyse current market trends, consumer needs and develop product strategies accordingly
- Identify and understand customer problems; prioritise features and tasks; build consensus
- Negotiate contracts with current and prospective service users
- Create product, product strategy documents, business cases, use cases and manage P&L
- Develop and maintain RPP service user relationships
- Oversee the seamless provision of the RPP services
- Oversee service testing process and validate end tests
- Prepare and update guidelines for the service administration
- Ensure the proper management (lifecycle, catalogue, performance, reporting) of RPP products and services is in place
- Responsible for the overall pricing and billing process
- Manage any customer escalations with regards operational efficiency, accuracy and experience.
- Escalate any disputes to RPP Scheme Management for resolution
- Report all service levels to Senior Management Team monthly and ensure scorecard update
- Oversee incident and change management in the RPP operation.
- Manage all industry incident escalations and reporting for the product

**QUALIFICATIONS / KNOWLEDGE**
- Bachelor's degree required in Business Management, or related field
- Masters of Business Administration (MBA) is an advantage
- Strong written, oral communication, and presentation skills
- Analytical thinking abilities and client facing communication skills
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite (Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.)

**EXPERIENCE**
- 5- years applicable Customer Service Management experience in an ICT service environment
- Ability to calculate and translate risk into actionable mitigating actions
- Strong ability to work in a collaborative team environment
- Experience in product management life cycle
- Effective negotiating skills
- Familiar with global payments and the surrounding ecosystem
- Working knowledge of strict compliance environments
- Min 3 years experience mentoring and managing teams of technical employees
- Strong problem solving and analytical capabilities
- Strong ability to execute projects from end-to-end with consistent attention to detail
- Experience of analyzing and breaking down problems and information using structured frameworks and methodologies
- Experience leading product and service teams and projects that require coordination of many stakeholders and cross functional teams
- Persistence and a whatever-it-takes approach to ensure that the product and team are successful