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