Senior Payment and Cards Solution Architect - Contract

We are looking for a highly experienced Senior Payment & Cards Solution Architect with deep expertise across the Cards and Payments ecosystem, including Issuing, Acquiring, ATM/POS Switching, ISO 8583 and ISO 20022.

The successful candidate will be responsible for defining end-to-end solution architecture for complex Cards and Payments initiatives, working closely with business, technology, product, infrastructure, security and delivery teams.

• Define and own end-to-end solution architecture for Cards and Payments platforms and transformation initiatives.

• Design scalable, secure and resilient solutions across Card Issuing, Acquiring, ATM and POS environments.

• Architect solutions involving payment switches, card management systems, payment gateways and banking platforms.

• Design and review transaction flows covering authorisation, routing, clearing and settlement.

• Provide architecture leadership for ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 messaging, mapping, transformation and system integration.

• Define integration architecture between payment platforms, core banking systems, digital channels and external payment networks.

• Develop solution architecture documents, integration designs, interface specifications, system interaction diagrams and technical roadmaps.

• Evaluate existing payment architecture and recommend modernisation, migration and optimisation approaches.

• Ensure architecture meets requirements for high availability, scalability, performance, security and resiliency.

• Work closely with engineering and delivery teams throughout design, development, testing, certification, migration and production implementation.

• Conduct architecture and technical design reviews and provide guidance to development and integration teams.

• Collaborate with business stakeholders, product teams, vendors, payment networks and technology teams to translate requirements into appropriate technical solutions.

• Identify architecture risks, dependencies and technical constraints and recommend appropriate solutions.

• Provide technical leadership for complex Cards and Payments transformation programs.

• Overall Delivery Experience: 10+ years in complex banking/payment technology environments.

• Cards Domain: 10+ years of strong Cards and Payments experience.

• ATM/POS Switching: 10+ years of deep experience in ATM/POS switching and transaction processing.

• Issuing & Acquiring: 10+ years of extensive experience across card Issuing and Acquiring platforms.

• Strong knowledge of the end-to-end card transaction lifecycle, including authorisation, clearing, settlement, reconciliation and exception handling.

• Proven experience designing enterprise-scale payment solutions and integration architectures.

• Strong understanding of real-time transaction processing and payment routing.

• Experience working with high-volume, highly available and mission-critical payment platforms.

• Strong knowledge of API, middleware and system integration concepts.

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to engage both technical teams and senior business stakeholders.

• Experience with leading Card Management Systems and Payment Switching platforms.

• Experience integrating with major card schemes and payment networks.

• Knowledge of EMV, tokenisation, payment security and PCI DSS.

• Experience with payment platform modernisation and legacy-to-modern architecture transformation.

• Exposure to API/microservices, event-driven architecture and cloud/hybrid architectures within banking environments.

• Experience managing complex payment platform migrations and cutovers.

• Strong experience with payment messaging standards and transaction flows -ISO 8583 / ISO 20022:.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline.

• Architecture, cloud, payments or relevant professional certifications would be advantageous.

Contract