Payments Strategy & Integration Lead

Job description

Purpose of role

At Shop2Shop, payments are not just a feature — they are part of the infrastructure that enables thousands of entrepreneurs to trade, grow, and thrive every day.

The Payments Strategy & Integration Lead will shape and evolve Shop2Shop’s payments integration strategy and architecture across acquiring, issuing, and real-time payment rails. This role is responsible for leading technical and regulatory-level engagement with banks and payment networks, ensuring our payments architecture is scalable, compliant, resilient, and aligned to our business goals.

You will serve as a payments subject matter expert who understands how payment rails work end-to-end — and who can translate regulatory requirements into practical architecture, strong partner integrations, and clear product insights that enable delivery teams to build the right things, in the right way.

You’ll thrive in this role if…

• You love understanding how payments really work — not just the product experience, but the rails, rules, and flows underneath it all.
• You’re able to translate complexity into clarity — mapping end-to-end flows, defining requirements, and helping teams make the right decisions early.
• You enjoy working across multiple teams and priorities, and you know how to create alignment without needing formal authority.
• You’re confident engaging with external partners like banks, regulators, and fintechs — and you can hold your own in high-stakes conversations.
• You naturally think in trade-offs: speed vs risk, commercial ambition vs scheme rules, “what’s possible” vs “what’s scalable”.
• You bring structure and discipline to work that often feels messy — and you’re not afraid to ask the questions others avoid.
• You take ownership seriously: when something affects payments, customer trust, or compliance — you lean in, follow through, and get it done.
• You have a good understanding of the payments regulatory and and governance environments.

What you’ll do

Payments strategy and integration blueprint

• Define and evolve Shop2Shop’s payments integration blueprint across issuing, and rapid payments and store of value functionality.
• Translate regulatory requirements into clear delivery requirements and prioritised integration needs.
• Partner with the Tech team to ensure solutions delivered are compliant, scalable, resilient and aligned with business goals.

Bank and scheme

• Lead end-to-end bank and scheme / association enablement — from early feasibility discussions through to onboarding and go-live readiness.
• Drive alignment between banks/scheme stakeholders and internal teams on what is required for certification and readiness.
• Ensure testing, certification and operational requirements are defined, planned and executed by delivery requirements are defined, planned and executed by delivery teams.
• Maintain strong ongoing partner relationships to support stability and future enhancements.

Payments advisory (product and delivery support)

• Partner closely with Product and Delivery teams to provide expert payments input into:
• Issuing design and transaction flows
• Regulatory constraints and opportunities
• Pricing and product viability implications (where relevant)
• Provide “roving” payments insights across squads — helping teams avoid common pitfalls and integration failures.
• Translate regulatory requirements into architectural inputs that support strong product planning (without owning the product roadmap.)

Commercial support (partner negotiations)

• Support commercial engagements with banks, fintech partners, associations, scheme stakeholders and payment networks by:
• contributing integration feasibility assessments
• supporting negotiation preparation with real constraints and options
• validating integration timelines, certification effort and dependency risk
• Partner with internal commercial leaders to ensure agreements are realistic and aligned with Shop2Shop’s integration standards and growth direction.

Ensure solutions align with:

• bank integration policies and operational obligations
• regulatory requirements relevant to payments (as applicable)
• Contribute to audit readiness, reporting requirements, and governance engagements.
• Act as a trusted advisor on payments risk and controls, including operational risks.

Core competencies

• Regulatory understanding of the payments landscape in South Africa/
• Payments systems thinking: Understands how payments rails work end-to-end and can connect regulatory rules, and product design into one coherent view.
• Integration scoping and requirements definition: Able to scope regulatory requirements, define what needs to be built, and translate requirements into clear, delivery-ready inputs and priorities.
• Stakeholder alignment and influence: Creates alignment across Product, Tech, Delivery, Commercial and Legal/Compliance teams, influencing decisions through clarity, logic and credibility rather than formal authority.
• Partner engagement and relationship management: Builds trusted, high-impact relationships with banks, regulators, associations, navigating complex engagements with confidence, maturity and strong follow-through.
• Commercial judgement: Understands the commercial impact of payments decisions and can support negotiations by balancing feasibility, time-to-market, risk and long-term scalability.
• Governance and controls mindset: Approaches payments work with discipline — ensuring that controls, compliance, and operational stability are designed in from the start.
• Structured problem-solving: Breaks down complex payments and integration challenges into clear problem statements, dependencies and practical solutions.
• Delivery enablement: Enables delivery teams to move faster and avoid rework by reducing ambiguity, strengthening requirements, and ensuring partner readiness across the full integration lifecycle.

Skills and knowledge
Strong working knowledge of payments including issuing, rapid payments. :
Solid understanding of the South African payments landscape, including banks, schemes, and rapid payments (PayShap exposure is highly advantageous).

Integration eablement and requirements definition

• Proven ability to scope and define integration needs across complex external partners (banks, payment networks, fintech partners).
• Strong capability in translating scheme/bank requirements into:
• clear functional requirements
• process flows
• operational readiness needs
• delivery dependencies and risks
• Skilled in defining what needs to be built and why — and collaborating with Tech teams on how it is delivered.
• Comfortable reviewing and validating solution proposals to ensure they meet payments/scheme requirements (without needing to be hands-on in technical implementation).

Stakeholder and partner engagement

• Confident engaging with senior stakeholders across:
• banks and fintech partners
• PaiInc, PASA etc
• internal Product, Delivery, Tech, Legal/Compliance and Commercial teams
• Ability to navigate high-stakes conversations with partners where timelines, risk, requirements and commercial positioning must be balanced.
• Strong influencing capability — able to create alignment and move work forward without formal authority.
• Commercial Awareness
• Strong understanding of how payments integration choices affect:
• time-to-market
• operational effort
• commercial viability and pricing assumptions
• scalability and partner dependency risk
• Capable of supporting commercial negotiations by providing realistic integration inputs and highlighting delivery implications, constraints and risk trade-offs.

Documentation, process and delivery rhythm

• Ability to produce and maintain clear documentation such as:
• payments flow maps
• integration requirement briefs
• certification readiness checklists
• risk/control requirements
• Strong planning and execution discipline in multi-stakeholder delivery environments.

Qualifications

• Relevant tertiary qualification in Business, Commerce, Information Systems, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Payments-related certifications, training, or bank integration programmes are beneficial (but not essential if practical experience is strong).
• Experience
• 5+ years of experience in payments, banking integrations, fintech, switching or processing environments.
• Demonstrated experience supporting complex payment integrations or payment.

Growth mindset
At Shop2Shop, we believe the best people aren’t the ones who know everything — they’re the ones who keep learning, keep improving, and stay open.

• In this role, you will be expected to:
• Stay current with the evolving South African payments landscape and regulatory developments.
• Improve internal payments knowledge across teams by sharing insights, patterns, and lessons learned.
• Continuously strengthen Shop2Shop’s payments architecture maturity — making it simpler, stronger, and more scalable over time.

Other requirements

• Willingness to travel occasionally for workshops or team alignment
• Strong digital workplace setup with uninterrupted connectivity for remote collaboration

Posted on 20 Apr 10:50, Closing date 19 Jun