Senior Manager – Payments and Remittances

Role Overview

Senior Manager – Payments and Remittances at Emirates NBD. The role is responsible for developing and managing domestic and international payment products across Emirates NBD Group and Liv, from concept to launch.

Company Overview

Emirates NBD is a market leader across the MENAT (Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye) region with a presence in 13 countries, serving over 9 million customers. It is the leading financial services brand in the UAE with a brand value of approximately USD 4 billion. The bank serves customers through retail banking, corporate & institutional banking, Islamic banking, investment banking, private banking, asset management, global markets and treasury, and brokerage operations. Ninety-seven percent of all financial transactions and requests are conducted outside of branches. Emirates NBD operates Liv, the lifestyle digital bank, which has over half a million users and is the fastest-growing digital bank in the region.

Role Purpose

Develop and manage payment and remittance products and services with expertise in payment ecosystems, SWIFT, host-to-host integrations, and instant payment platforms. Ensure operational resilience, regulatory compliance, customer experience, and continuous process improvement across retail channels and digital offerings.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Resilience

• Establish and maintain robust controls to prevent service disruptions and transaction failures in all payment and remittance processes.
• Coordinate incident response and root cause analysis for payment system outages, ensuring rapid recovery and lessons learned integration.
• Continuously evaluate operational workflows to identify and address bottlenecks, fraud risks, and compliance gaps.
• Champion adoption of automation and digital tools to enhance reliability and reduce manual intervention.
• Collaborate with IT and vendor partners to ensure system upgrades and patches are implemented without adverse customer impact.
• Monitor frequency and severity of unplanned service interruptions.
• Track effectiveness of incident response and recovery actions.
• Gather stakeholder feedback on operational reliability.

Regulatory Compliance and Risk Mitigation

• Interpret and operationalise MAS, PSD2, and other relevant regulatory requirements within payments and remittance processes.
• Conduct regular risk assessments to identify emerging threats, including AML, CTF, and data privacy exposures.
• Oversee implementation of controls to ensure adherence to transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and reporting obligations.
• Lead internal reviews and audits, addressing findings and embedding corrective actions into business as usual operations.
• Engage with compliance and legal teams to stay ahead of regulatory changes and industry best practices.
• Ensure absence of regulatory breaches or audit findings.
• Deliver timely and complete compliance reporting.
• Demonstrate reduction in identified risk exposures.

Customer Experience and Product Competitiveness

• Analyse customer feedback, market trends, and competitor offerings to identify opportunities for product enhancement.
• Work with product, digital, and marketing teams to design and launch new payment and remittance features aligned with customer needs.
• Monitor end-to-end customer journeys to resolve pain points and streamline onboarding, transaction, and support processes.
• Develop and track KPIs for customer satisfaction, transaction turnaround times, and service adoption rates.
• Advocate for digital innovation, including instant payments, cross-border solutions, and API integrations.
• Drive improvement in customer satisfaction and NPS scores for payment services.
• Deliver market share growth in targeted remittance corridors.
• Increase adoption rates of new digital payment features.

Governance and Change Management

• Prioritise and oversee delivery of process improvement projects, ensuring alignment with departmental and regulatory objectives.
• Facilitate cross-functional working groups to drive adoption of new technologies, compliance controls, and operational efficiencies.
• Evaluate business cases for investment in new payment platforms, tools, or partnerships.
• Track and report on project milestones, risks, and benefits realisation to senior management.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement and risk awareness within the payments and remittances team.
• Achieve project objectives and benefits realisation.
• Maintain stakeholder engagement and buy-in for change initiatives.
• Sustain improvements in process efficiency and control effectiveness.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Banking, Finance, Business or related field.
• Professional certification in payments (e.g. Certified Payments Professional, ACI Payments Certification) preferred.
• Ongoing CPD in regulatory compliance, digital banking, or risk management.