Payments Functional Program Manager

Principal, Business Consulting – Payments Functional Program Manager

Practice: Financial Services, Infosys Consulting

Focus: High Value Payments (HVP) Modernization | ISO 20022 | COTS on Microservices | Agentic AI

Role Summary

Infosys Consulting’s Financial Services practice is seeking a seasoned Functional Program Manager to lead a Payments Modernization program for a Tier 1 financial institution. You will drive the replacement of legacy mainframe systems with a COTS product, and forward engineer rail agnostic capabilities on a cloud/microservices platform, incorporating agentic AI to enable intelligent, future ready payment flows.

This is a high impact, client facing role(s) requiring deep payments expertise, strong program leadership, and a track record of delivering complex transformations in regulated environments.

What You’ll Do

• Own the client relationship across transformation delivery, BAU change, and support for a large U.S. bank; manage senior stakeholder expectations while maintaining profitability and growth.
• Lead platform modernization that includes but not limited to reverse engineering of legacy mainframe platforms, forward engineering, COTS product implementation, and upstream/downstream integrations.
• Direct ISO 20022 adoption and certification (e.g., Fedwire/FedNow, CBPR ); guide product configuration and customization—especially for ACI MTS and UPF.
• Govern program financials: budgeting, milestone billing, forecasting, pipeline management, and margin integrity.
• Set payments architecture direction: advocate rail agnostic orchestration, microservices patterns, cloud deployment models, and event driven integration.
• Shape and integrate agentic AI interventions across journeys (ops automation, dispute/exception handling, reconciliation, data quality, monetization).
• Lead cross functional teams (client & Infosys) to gather requirements, design data maps, ensure traceability, and manage risk/issue remediation.
• Support business development: solutioning, proposals, thought leadership, market relevant POVs.
• Ensure compliance with PCI DSS/AML/KYC, resiliency, observability, and operational excellence.
• Not a pure BA role—we’re seeking leaders who can span program delivery, architecture direction, and domain depth.

Role Tracks (You may align to one primary track and flex across others)

• Program Management (Payments Modernization)
• Drive multi year HVP modernization with COTS, integrations, ISO migrations, certification, and executive governance.
• Enterprise / Solution Architecture (Payments)
• Define target state (rail agnostic, ISO native), microservices reference architecture, messaging, integration patterns, security, and scalability.
• Payments SME / Advisory
• Lead consulting engagements across HVP, RTP, cross border, treasury, and ISO 20022; shape roadmaps, operating models, and AI enabled capabilities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree (or foreign equivalent).
• 7 years in payments/financial services with 3 years in management consulting at a top tier/professional services firm. (10 years overall experience preferred for a principal.)
• Deep HVP domain expertise: Fedwire/CHIPS, CBPR , cross border, and ISO 20022 message standards (pacs/camt/pain; mapping, validation, enrichment).
• Delivered at least one end to end ISO 20022 migration for CBPR and/or Fedwire/FedNow: experience with certification and market testing. (Cards professionals are welcome with consumer and commercial card solutions E2E implementation experiences)
• Hands on experience across payments value chain at enterprise and ecosystem level: origination, processing, clearing/settlement, servicing, messaging—B2B, disbursements, consumer/retail.
• Experience with COTS Payment Hubs and processors (e.g., ACI MTS/UPF, Finastra, Fiserv) and complex integration in regulated environments.
• Solid understanding of legacy mainframe payment systems and modernization patterns.
• Proficiency in program governance & financials, stakeholder management, issue/risk management, and executive communication.
• Familiarity with cloud & microservices constructs (e.g., containerization, APIs, event streaming) and DevSecOps/testing management.
• Ability to travel extensively.
• Candidates authorized to work for any employer in the United States without employer-based visa sponsorship are welcome to apply. Infosys is unable to provide immigration sponsorship for this role at this time.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certifications: PMP/PRINCE2/SAFe; TOGAF 9.2/10 (for architecture track); ISO 20022 certifications; BIS/Fed or equivalent; Agile delivery.
• RTP expertise: TCH RTP and FedNow implementation; vendor experience (Finastra, Fiserv) is a plus.
• Liquidity/Treasury: Nostro/Vostro, cash & liquidity management, payables/receivables, collections.
• Cross rail expertise: HVP, mass payments (ACH), immediate payments (RTP/FedNow), P2P, card (retail & commercial), tokenization, stablecoins (awareness).
• Data & Engineering: lineage, quality, metadata, monetization; Kafka/event streaming; API management; observability; resiliency engineering.
• AI in Payments: Machine Learning & Predictive Modeling (fraud, risk, anomaly detection, forecasting); GenAI/LLMs for ops automation, dispute handling, policy interpretation, developer/API copilots, and RAG; Reverse/forward engineering accelerators; MLOps and responsible AI (XAI, bias/fairness).
• Firm building: pre sales, POVs, conference visibility, industry research.

Core Skills & Ways of Working

• Thought leadership and structured problem solving; crisp storytelling for C Suite.
• Numbers driven program leadership: budget, schedule, scope, and benefits realization.
• Stakeholder management across technology, operations, risk/compliance, product, and external networks.
• Hands on orientation with the ability to go deep on requirements, mappings, and validation without losing the big picture.

Responsibilities Snapshot (Illustrative)

• Stand up and run a multi wave ISO 20022 program (CBPR , Fedwire, FedNow).
• Lead COTS hub implementation (e.g., ACI MTS/UPF): product fit, customization, integration, certification.
• Define target state architecture (rail agnostic orchestration, microservices, APIs, streaming).
• Implement AI/LLM use cases in payments ops, exception management, reconciliation, and data monetization.
• Deliver RTP via leading products (Finastra, Fiserv) as an advantage.
• Manage DevSecOps and testing services; ensure performance, resilience, and compliance.
• Build data maps and transformations for message conversion and canonical models.
• Drive pipeline expansion and support pursuits with solutioning and differentiated PoVs.

The estimated total annual compensation (Base Bonus) range for candidates based out on NJ, IL, NY, CA & WA will be $ 154,375 to $ 193,125