Payments Business Analyst

Job Title: Payments Business Analyst

Employment: Permanent

Work Location: Chester, UK (Hybrid, 3 days in office)

Job Description:

• We are seeking an experienced Payments Business Analyst with strong expertise in banking payments, payment processing, and regulatory initiatives. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of payment schemes such as SEPA (SCT & Instant), CHAPS, Faster Payments, BACS, SWIFT MT/MX, TARGET2, and ISO 20022 migration. The role will involve working closely with business stakeholders, product owners, architects, and technology teams to deliver strategic payment transformation initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Gather, analyze, and document business, functional, and non-functional requirements for payment systems and platforms.
• Work with stakeholders across business, operations, compliance, and technology teams to define payment solutions and process improvements.
• Analyze end-to-end payment flows for domestic and cross-border payment schemes.
• Create and maintain Business Requirement Documents (BRDs), Functional Requirement Documents (FRDs), user stories, process flows, and gap analyses.
• Support payment modernization and ISO 20022 migration initiatives, including MT-to-MX message transformation requirements.
• Conduct impact assessments for changes related to payment schemes, regulations, and operational processes.
• Support regulatory and compliance initiatives related to payments, sanctions screening, AML, and financial crime controls.

Required Skills & Experience

• Proven experience as a Business Analyst within the banking or financial services industry.
• Strong knowledge of payment systems and payment processing lifecycles.
• Hands-on experience with the following:
  • SEPA (SCT & Instant), CHAPS, Faster Payments (FPS), BACS, SWIFT MT/MX Messaging, Cross-Border Payments.
• Experience supporting ISO 20022 migration programs and message mapping initiatives.
• Strong understanding of payment operations, settlement, clearing, reconciliation, and exception handling processes.
• Experience writing user stories, acceptance criteria, process maps, and business requirements documentation.
• Familiarity with Agile, Scrum, and Jira.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.