Senior Product Manager – Core Payments & Local Ecosystem Integration

Project overview

Senior Product Manager – Core Payments & Local Ecosystem Integration

CONTEXT

Our client is an international group present in many countries, issuing and managing prepaid payment methods for companies and their users.

Its Payments team is building the infrastructure that supports all its products: issuance, instrument management, merchant acceptance, transaction processing, and settlement. Each country has its own payment ecosystem (processor, card manufacturer, logistics, schemes, tokenization providers). The goal is to move to a single, multi-product, account-based Core, connected to each local ecosystem via standardized integration models. France is the first market to be deployed.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

THE MISSION

You will drive the evolution of the Core Payments platform and its deployment in the French market and its ecosystem. This currently relies partly on a 3-party model, with an evolution towards a 4-party model (CB) for other products.

Specifically, you will analyze the specifications and constraints of local partners (processor, card manufacturer, delivery tracking, schemes, tokenization providers). You will transform this analysis into decisions on the Core's evolution, then secure the integration as well as the compliance, finance, and operations aspects. You are responsible for the 'what' and the 'why', and you will ensure decisions are made quickly in a highly regulated domain.

The Core is new and will evolve significantly in the coming months. France is going first; the models defined here will be reused in other countries. AI handles recurring tasks (backlog refinement, ticket writing, ceremony management), so that product time is dedicated to the domain, decisions, and alignment.

The work is organized into three priorities, in order of effort:

Objective: bring France into production on an evolved, multi-product, account-based Core, with its entire partner ecosystem and its run model. Leave a Core and a playbook that allow subsequent countries to be deployed by configuration rather than reconstruction.

Out of scope: manually writing each user story, acting as Scrum Master, managing daily operations once the run teams have taken over.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

The mission will be evaluated on features in production and widely adopted.

Wave 1 (first six months):

Wave 2 (following six months):

The mission may also include participation in building an intelligent authorizer.

• Contract type: service provision (umbrella possible)
• Duration: 12 months, plus 6 months for run monitoring and adjustments
• Start date: November 2026
• Location: Île-de-France, hybrid (3 days on-site, 2 days remote)
• Squad: 6 engineers, 1 QA, 1 Service Owner, several AI agents, shared DevOps
• Skill distribution: 50% expertise in payment ecosystem, integration, and operations; 50% decision-making and leadership
• Language: fluent English mandatory, French appreciated
• Partner analysis (most important): understand the specifications, data, deadlines, and constraints of each partner, and compare them to the Core.
• Core evolution: transform this analysis into decisions on the domain model, APIs, and features, and drive the evolutions with the squad.
• Integration and run: connect, certify, and deploy to production, with compliance, finance, and operations ready from the first transaction.
• Finalization of ongoing work: first virtual card order, balance and validity management, offloading, order correction, card renewal
• First physical card order on the Core
• Integration of bulk delivery and card personalization
• Integration of new account types, with their balances and transactions
• Integration of customer funding and per-user budget logic
• Evolution of processor integration to handle multiple products on a single card
• Support for new products with the processor

Responsibilities

Analyze local partners:

Drive Core evolution:

Secure integration and run:

Decision-making and leadership:

PROFILE SOUGHT

Essential:

Appreciated:

• Map the ecosystem of each country: processor (authorization, clearing, settlement files), card manufacturer, delivery tracking, schemes, TSP/ITSP for tokenization
• Read and challenge partner API and file specifications, message formats, deadlines, and SLAs
• Perform gap analyses against the Core: what is covered, what is missing, what remains in a local adapter
• Identify regulatory, contractual, operational, and financial constraints upstream
• Decide what becomes a standard feature and what remains country-specific
• Shape the domain model and APIs (accounts, wallets, instruments, authorization, ledger)
• Write PRDs and decision records, and prioritize them with the squad
• Maintain Core consistency by refusing local shortcuts that would fragment the platform
• Integration: requirements, certification, end-to-end testing with partners and schemes, switchover preparation
• Compliance: KYC/AML, PCI DSS, PSD2/SCA, GDPR, DORA, and French sector-specific regulations (spending limits, eligible merchants)
• Finance: settlement flows, funding, reconciliation between processors, schemes, and ledger, accounting entries for monthly closing
• Operations: card ordering and logistics, lost and stolen cards, disputes and chargebacks, incidents, support procedures
• Partner relations: product contact for roadmaps, evolution requests, and incidents
• Monitor indicators: Core reuse between countries, authorization acceptance rates, reconciliation discrepancies, delivery times, incident rates, time to integrate a new partner
• Make firm, documented decisions and stand by them under pressure
• Arbitrate between experts (architecture, security, finance, compliance, operations)
• Champion business and commercial needs to the platform
• Provide frank feedback, including to senior stakeholders
• Guide markets and teams towards the account-based model
• Communicate clearly at every level: one-page notes for management, precise contracts for engineers, simple language for markets
• 8+ years in product management, including at least 5 years in card issuing, prepaid/e-money, BaaS, or payment platforms
• Hands-on experience integrating with issuer ecosystem partners: processors, card manufacturers, logistics providers
• Ability to read and challenge partner specifications (APIs, ISO messages, settlement files)
• Launches in a regulated environment with Compliance, Risk, and Finance teams, and design of the run model
• Knowledge of ledgers and balance management (double-entry, real-time vs settled balances)
• Experience as a PM for an API or platform product, ideally new and rapidly evolving
• Ability to lead without hierarchical authority
• Comfortable with AI-augmented tools and teams
• Fluent English
• Knowledge of restricted-use and multi-wallet prepaid products, and their regulation in France
• Deployment of the same platform in multiple countries
• QR payments, tokenization (Apple Pay, Google Pay), account-to-account payments
• Modern issuer processors, real-time event-driven architectures
• Fluent French and another European language
• Knowledge of schemes (Visa, Mastercard, CB)

Project details

• Start: flexible
• Remote: hybrid
• Location: Paris, France, FR
• Rate: 63-75 EUR/h
• Languages: French