Vice President & Platform Owner-Cards

Job Description

What You Will Do

• Own the full run-and-change lifecycle of RAKBANK's cards technology platforms — TSYS Prime 4 (Card Management), TSYS Online Authorization, and the post-facto fraud detection platform — treating each as a managed internal bank product with defined SLOs, SLAs, and uptime KPIs that are actively monitored, reported, and maintained.
• Own end-to-end UAE local payment scheme compliance and mandate implementation — managing all technical and operational requirements mandated by the UAE local scheme (Al Etihad Payments / UAESWITCH or successor domestic scheme), ensuring RAKBANK's cards platform meets domestic interoperability, routing, and certification requirements alongside Visa and Mastercard international scheme mandates; track scheme mandate calendars, assess platform impact, and deliver changes within required certification timelines.
• Drive the cards platform's capacity for innovation and future growth — maintaining a platform that is architecturally capable of supporting new card product types (credit, debit, prepaid, virtual, corporate purchasing cards), digital wallet integration (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay), tokenisation (EMV token service provider integration), BNPL schemes, and emerging payment innovations — ensuring the platform scales to meet the needs of personal banking, SME, commercial, and large corporate customers without requiring re-platforming.
• Ensure the cards platform meets the full spectrum of RAKBANK's customer segment requirements — from consumer credit and debit products for personal banking customers, through SME business cards with spend controls and reporting, to commercial and large corporate card programmes with multi-entity structures, virtual card issuance, and ERP integration — working closely with Cards business to translate segment-specific requirements into platform capabilities.
• Expose cards platform capabilities as stable, well-documented APIs — working with the EA Platform Architect to design and govern a stable API layer for card issuance, lifecycle management, transaction enquiry, limit management, and authorisation controls; maintain API versioning discipline and ensure consuming digital channels, open banking interfaces, and internal squads are protected from breaking changes.
• Lead cards platform operations with the precision required by a real-time, millisecond-critical authorisation system — owning online authorisation health monitoring, BCP planning, DR readiness for authorisation continuity, P1/P2 incident escalation and resolution, and post-incident reviews with root-cause elimination for any authorisation or fraud detection failure.
• Govern post-facto fraud detection operations — overseeing fraud rule tuning, detection effectiveness metrics (false positive rate, fraud loss rate, detection rate), and coordination with the Cards fraud operations team; ensure the fraud detection capability is continuously optimised and aligned with emerging UAE and regional fraud patterns.
• Manage all aspects of platform run: OS and database patching, TSYS version and release management, PCI DSS compliance maintenance, underlying infrastructure coordination with the Head of Infrastructure, and scheme mandate implementation for Visa, Mastercard, and UAE local scheme — ensuring no scheme certification lapses.
• Lead the cards platform team — platform engineers, cards technology specialists, and platform BAs — creating a high-performance, customer-first team culture with clear ownership, accountability, structured performance management, and continuous capability development.
• Manage platform OPEX and operational efficiency — maintaining an accurate FTE model for cards platform run, identifying automation opportunities to reduce manual toil (card lifecycle automation, dispute processing automation, scheme file processing), and applying AI-assisted fraud and operations tooling to improve efficiency and detection effectiveness over time.
• Plan and communicate the cards platform technical roadmap ahead of consuming squads and projects — ensuring API stability, processing capacity headroom, and platform readiness are always ahead of programme delivery timelines, and that the innovation pipeline for new card products and digital capabilities is clearly articulated and sequenced with business stakeholders.
• Work closely with the EA Platform Architect to implement technical standards, TSYS parameterisation frameworks, and architecture patterns — ensuring all platform change adheres to RAKBANK's EA strategy, PCI DSS requirements, and the technical standards of all applicable schemes.
• Maintain a comprehensive register of all TSYS customisations, parameterisation configurations, BIN structures, fraud rule logic, and technology debt — working with EA to prioritise debt remediation and ensure full documentation of every customisation and configuration in production.
• Own the new change delivery process for the cards platform — partnering with programme managers to plan robust delivery, maintaining and continuously improving regression test packs for authorisation, card lifecycle, fraud detection, and scheme certification scenarios, applying DevOps release practices and ensuring all releases meet PCI DSS, scheme certification, and NFR standards before going live.
• Own all run-and-change KPIs for the cards platform — authorisation approval rate, authorisation response time, system uptime, fraud detection rate, false positive rate, MTTR, PCI DSS compliance currency, scheme mandate delivery timeliness, and change success rate — reporting to the CTO and cards governance forums with trend analysis and improvement plans.
• Maintain test environments and cards-specific test data packs (including BIN configurations, card profiles, authorisation scenarios, scheme certification test cases, and fraud test cases) with production-equivalent rigour — ensuring environments are always available, PCI DSS compliant, and representative of live configurations.
• Champion a customer-first culture — working closely with Cards business and operations teams across all segments to resolve tickets and incidents with urgency, eliminate recurring platform issues through systemic root-cause fixes, and proactively communicate platform health and innovation roadmap to business stakeholders.

What We Are Looking For

• 15+ years in banking technology with at least 5 years in a platform management, product ownership, or senior application management role covering card management systems.
• Hands-on experience with TSYS Prime 4 (or an equivalent enterprise card management platform such as OpenWay WAY4, Compass Plus, or FIS CAMS) is strongly preferred; direct TSYS Prime 4 experience is a significant advantage.
• Deep functional knowledge of card products and operations across the full customer spectrum — consumer credit and debit, prepaid and virtual cards, SME business cards, commercial and large corporate card programmes — and the platform configuration required to support each segment.
• Experience managing the post-facto fraud detection capability — including rule management, fraud analytics, detection effectiveness optimisation, and coordination with fraud operations teams.
• Strong understanding of PCI DSS requirements and their operational implications for card platform management and scheme certification.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field.