Payments Solutions Architect - Payments & Treasury - London
Payments Solutions Architect - Payments & Treasury - London
Rate: £700 - £1000 per day
Location: London or Brussels
Contract: 12 months
Working Model: Hybrid - approximately 8 days per month onsite
Travel: Occasional travel between London and Brussels, approximately once every 6 weeks
The Opportunity
We are looking for a Senior Cash & Banking Architect to join a major financial services organisation and support the modernisation of its Cash & Banking technology landscape.
This is a senior architecture role sitting at the intersection of payments, cash management, treasury and technology architecture. You will help shape the future architecture of business-critical banking platforms while working across both modern and legacy technology environments.
We are particularly interested in candidates with strong experience in payments and cross-border payments, who understand the end-to-end payment lifecycle and can translate complex business requirements into scalable technology solutions.
You do not need previous experience within this organisation or detailed knowledge of its existing cash platforms. A strong foundation in payments, banking and architecture is the priority.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and shape architecture across cash, payments and treasury platforms.
- Support the modernisation of existing banking and payment systems.
- Provide architecture expertise across the end-to-end payment lifecycle, including payment initiation, processing, clearing and settlement.
- Design solutions using event-driven architectures, APIs and microservices.
- Define integration patterns across multiple platforms and technology environments.
- Work with both modern platforms and established/legacy banking systems.
- Support the evolution from legacy messaging and integration approaches towards modern standards and architectures.
- Lead architecture workshops and working sessions with business and technology stakeholders.
- Evaluate solution options, architectural trade-offs, dependencies and risks.
- Present and defend architecture recommendations to senior stakeholders.
- Work collaboratively with engineering teams, business teams, product owners and other architects.
What We're Looking For
Payments & Banking
- Strong experience within the payments domain.
- Good understanding of cross-border/international payments.
- Understanding of the complete payment lifecycle through to clearing and settlement.
- Experience with SWIFT messaging.
- Knowledge of ISO 20022 and modern payment messaging standards.
- Familiarity with legacy SWIFT MT messaging alongside newer MX/ISO 20022 standards.
- Knowledge of cash management and/or treasury concepts.
- Experience gained within banking, financial-market infrastructure, clearing, settlement or a relevant financial-services consultancy.
Architecture
- Significant experience as a Solution Architect, Domain Architect, Enterprise Architect or Payments Architect.
- Strong understanding of event-driven architecture.
- Experience designing API and microservices-based architectures.
- Strong enterprise integration knowledge.
- Experience working across complex, highly integrated technology landscapes.
- Understanding of integration between mainframe and open-system environments would be advantageous but is not essential.
- Experience modernising legacy banking or payments platforms would be highly desirable.
Leadership & Stakeholder Management
This is not simply a technical design position. We are looking for an architect who is comfortable operating at a senior level and influencing important technology decisions.
You should be able to:
- Lead architecture and solution-design workshops.
- Facilitate discussions between business and technology teams.
- Clearly explain complex architecture decisions.
- Challenge existing approaches constructively.
- Respond confidently when your proposed architecture is challenged.
- Explain the assumptions, risks and trade-offs behind your recommendations.
- Adapt your approach as new information becomes available.
Ideal Background
Relevant candidates may currently be working within:
- Corporate or Transaction Banking
- Payments
- Cash Management
- Treasury Technology
- Financial Market Infrastructure
- Clearing & Settlement
- Post-Trade Technology
- Banking / Payments Transformation
- Financial Services Consulting
Previous experience within a CSD or financial-market infrastructure organisation would be valuable, but is not a prerequisite.
Please do send across to me the most up to date CV to
*Rates depend on experience and client requirements