Investec – Where Out of the Ordinary Happens

At Investec, we do things differently. We're a leading international bank and wealth manager built on a culture of curiosity, entrepreneurial spirit and human connection. Ideas are heard, ambition is celebrated, and impact is encouraged. As part of a team that challenges convention and strives for outperformance, you'll help shape bold solutions for clients who expect something more than the ordinary.

1. Payments Product Strategy & Vision

• Define and execute the payments product strategy aligned to business growth, customer needs, regulatory change, and emerging industry trends.
• Shape a roadmap that incorporates AI-enabled product differentiation, including:
• Intelligent routing optimization
• Predictive liquidity management
• Real-time anomaly detection
• Intelligent reconciliation and exception handling
• Identify opportunities where AI and advanced analytics can improve:
• Customer experience
• Operational efficiency
• Risk mitigation
• Revenue generation
• Act as the internal authority on payments strategy, intelligent product evolution, and emerging AI-driven payment innovations.

2. Product Roadmap Ownership

• Own and prioritize the end-to-end payments product roadmap, covering:
• Instant payments (FPS, SEPA Instant)
• High-value payments (CHAPS, TARGET2, SWIFT)
• Emerging rails and digital channels
• Legacy decommissioning
• Incorporate data and AI-led insights into prioritization decisions, including:
• Usage analytics
• Cost-to-serve optimization
• Performance patterns
• Risk indicators
• Ensure AI-enabled capabilities are embedded as product features where appropriate, not isolated technical experiments.
• Embed non-functional requirements (availability, resilience, latency, scalability) alongside intelligent performance optimization and predictive observability.

3. AI-Enabled Payments Capability Strategy

• Define how AI can responsibly enhance the payments product portfolio, including:
• Intelligent payment routing
• Automated exception management
• Predictive service performance insights
• Fraud and anomaly signal enrichment (in partnership with Risk & Fraud)
• Establish guardrails for responsible AI adoption, ensuring:
• Explainability
• Auditability
• Data governance compliance
• Alignment with regulatory expectations
• Evaluate emerging AI vendors and fintech capabilities within the payments landscape.

4. Build vs Buy & Intelligent Partner Strategy

• Lead build-versus-buy decisions grounded in strategic value, cost, speed, long-term flexibility, and AI capability maturity.
• Assess vendors not only on functional coverage but also:
• AI capability robustness
• Data transparency
• Model governance
• Integration flexibility
• Own vendor and fintech evaluation from RFP to value realization.
• Ensure AI-enabled vendor solutions align with enterprise governance, resilience expectations, and customer fairness principles.

5. Modular Payments Platform & Capability Design

• Champion a modular, composable payments capability model that supports:
• Rapid onboarding of new schemes
• AI-enabled feature augmentation
• API ecosystem participation
• Define clear product boundaries and service contracts that allow AI-driven features to plug into core flows without compromising stability.
• Balance abstraction and flexibility with the strict performance and reliability demands of real-time payments.

6. Data-Driven & Insight-Led Product Management

• Promote a culture of data-informed decision-making across the product function.
• Leverage AI-supported analytics for:
• Customer behavior analysis
• Volume forecasting
• Liquidity demand prediction
• Operational performance insights
• Establish measurable KPIs that reflect both commercial and intelligent automation outcomes.

7. Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and grow the geographically distributed payments product capability.
• Build product management maturity in:
• AI-informed prioritization
• Data-driven product discovery
• Commercial modelling using predictive insights
• Encourage experimentation within controlled governance boundaries.
• Work closely with Engineering Delivery Leads to ensure AI initiatives are technically feasible, secure, and scalable.

8. Regulatory, Risk & Scheme Readiness

• Own product readiness for scheme participation, certification, and regulatory deadlines.
• Ensure AI-driven capabilities comply with:
• PSD2
• ISO 20022
• AML obligations
• Data protection requirements
• Partner with Risk and Compliance to ensure AI usage in payments:
• Is explainable
• Does not introduce bias
• Meets regulatory scrutiny standards.

9. Stakeholder & Industry Engagement

• Represent the organization in industry forums relating to payments innovation and AI adoption in financial services.
• Engage clearing houses, vendors, fintech, and regulators on evolving intelligent payments infrastructure.
• Clearly articulate trade-offs between automation, cost, customer experience, and risk.

Key Skills & Competencies

1. Payments & Product Expertise

• Deep experience across instant, high-value, and cross-border payments.
• Strong understanding of ISO 20022 and scheme migrations.
• Experience evolving platforms into commercially differentiated products.
• Awareness of AI applications within payments and financial services ecosystems.

2. Product & Technology Acumen

• Proven ability to bridge product strategy, technology execution, and intelligent capability design.
• Experience with modular platforms, API ecosystems, and cloud-native delivery.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled analytics, predictive modelling, or intelligent automation in enterprise environments.

3. Vendor & Commercial Strategy

• Strong vendor evaluation capability including AI maturity and governance considerations.
• Experience leveraging fintech ecosystems to accelerate innovation responsibly.

4. Leadership & Influence

• Ability to articulate AI strategy in business terms.
• Confident influencing senior stakeholders on intelligent automation trade-offs.
• Comfortable operating at the intersection of commercial, regulatory, and technology domains.

5. Performance Measures

• Delivery of scalable, resilient, and AI-enhanced payments products.
• Improved operational efficiency through intelligent automation.
• Data-informed roadmap decisions.
• Successful scheme participation and regulatory compliance.
• Tangible commercial value delivered through strategic vendor and AI-enabled capabilities.

What's in it for me?

At Investec, you'll be empowered to bring your authentic self, contribute new ideas, and grow alongside colleagues who share your drive for excellence. You will be part of a collaborative and creative culture where we encourage and are committed to sustainability across our global business. You will share in our purpose of creating enduring worth and together, we'll achieve things tomorrow that hardly seem possible today

As part of our collaborative & agile culture, our working week is 4 days in the office and one day remote. We believe that being together enables us to live our values and support our clients and communities in an extraordinary way.

Investec offers a range of wellbeing benefits to make our people feel healthier, balanced and more fulfilled in their lives inside and outside of work.

Embedded in our culture is a sense of belonging and inclusion. At Investec we want everyone to find it easy to be themselves, and to feel they belong. It's a responsibility we all share and is integral to our purpose and values as an organisation. We believe that innovation thrives when everyone feels respected, included, and empowered to contribute.

We actively seek out diverse talent and foster an inclusive environment, encouraging applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences. Here, you'll find networks, benefits, and development opportunities designed to support your career journey, wherever it may lead.

If this role excites you but you don't meet every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you. Your unique perspective and experience could be exactly what we are looking for.  Get in touch!

At Investec, we're deeply invested in our clients, our colleagues, and our communities. It's more than a mindset; it's how we show up every day.

Be part of something Out of the Ordinary.

Recite Me

We commit to ensure that everyone is fairly assessed during our recruitment process. To assist candidates in completing their application form, Recite Me assistive technology is available on our Careers pages. This can be accessed by clicking on the ‘Accessibility Options' link at the top of the page.

The Recite Me tool includes a screen reader, styling and customisation options, a series of reading aids, a translator and more.

If you have any form of disability or neurodivergent need and require further assistance in completing your application, please contact the Careers team at [email protected] who will be happy to assist.