Senior Process Engineer –Payments & Core Banking Transformation

Location: Johannesburg, Gauteng
Work Arrangement: On-site
Contract Duration: 6 months renewable

Industry: Banking / Financial Services
Experience Required: 10+ years
Workstreams: A – Payments | B – Core Banking & Account Management

About the Opportunity

Our client, a leading banking institution, is undertaking a major transformation programme to replace its existing payment engine and core banking systems

The programme requires experienced Senior Process Engineers to document existing business and technical processes, define future-state processes for the replacement platforms, and translate complex banking operations into detailed, build-ready specifications.

The successful candidates will bridge the gap between business stakeholders, technology teams, architects, developers and testers. They must ensure that process documentation accurately captures business rules, system behaviour, data flows, accounting entries, decision logic and exception scenarios.

All deliverables must be sufficiently detailed for business owners to validate and sign off, while enabling technology teams to build and test the replacement systems against approved requirements.

Workstream A: Payments

This workstream focuses on documenting and redesigning end-to-end payment and collection processes across the business.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Payment orders and payment initiation.
• Instant and real-time payments.
• Collections and payment collection processes.
• Biller and tax payment processing.
• Interbank payments and settlement.
• Payment channels and originating systems.
• Payment processing rules, routing, validation and exception handling.
• Payment message structures, integrations and data transformations.
• ISO 20022 message mapping, including identification of data truncation, loss or incompatibility.
• Reconciliation, payment status management and operational controls.

Candidates should understand South African payment processes and the technical and business implications of migrating payment functionality from legacy platforms to modern payment systems.

Workstream B: Core Banking & Account Management

This workstream focuses on core banking processes, account management, accounting functionality and the associated client, account and mandate data.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Client onboarding and client master data processes where relevant to the transformation.
• Account opening, maintenance, servicing and lifecycle management.
• Account structures, account relationships and mandate management.
• Banking transaction processing and accounting events.
• Debit and credit postings, general ledger mappings and accounting rules.
• Suspense and control accounts.
• Reconciliation processes and financial control points.
• Client, account and mandate data mapping to target data models.
• System interfaces, dependencies, validations and exception handling.
• Migration from existing mainframe-based functionality to the target core banking environment.

Candidates must be able to connect business events and account activity to the underlying system behaviour, data requirements and financial accounting outcomes.

Key Responsibilities Across Both Workstreams

• Document existing (“as-is”) and future (“to-be”) business and technical processes.
• Develop detailed end-to-end process models using BPMN 2.0.
• Translate business requirements into implementation-ready process specifications.
• Define process inputs, outputs, business rules, decision points, system interactions and exception paths.
• Develop and maintain business rule catalogues and DMN decision tables where appropriate.
• Map data flows, system interfaces, field-level transformations and dependencies.
• Identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, redundant activities, control gaps and non-value-adding processes.
• Apply Lean Six Sigma and continuous improvement methodologies to simplify and optimise processes.
• Facilitate workshops with business, technology, operations, architecture, risk, compliance and testing stakeholders.
• Maintain requirements traceability from source requirements through process models, rules and acceptance tests.
• Develop testable acceptance criteria, including test inputs and expected outcomes.
• Maintain a simplification log to identify legacy behaviour that should be changed or excluded from the new systems.
• Document unresolved questions, assumptions and dependencies, assigning them to the appropriate business or technical owner.
• Obtain formal business validation and sign-off for process documentation.
• Ensure process documentation is accurate, complete, consistent, traceable and usable by developers and testers.

Required Deliverables

1. End-to-end process models: Existing and target-state technical and business processes documented in BPMN 2.0.
2. Business rule and decision catalogue: Unique rule identifiers, status, ownership, source references and DMN decision tables.
3. Accounting flow documentation: Debit and credit entries, amounts, triggering events, general ledger mappings, suspense accounts and reconciliation points.
4. Data mapping specifications: ISO 20022 payment message mappings for Workstream A and target data model mappings for Workstream B.
5. Acceptance test specifications: Testable business rules with defined inputs and expected results to compare legacy and target-system behaviour.
6. Process simplification log: Legacy behaviours to be retained, changed or removed.
7. Open questions and decision log: Unresolved matters assigned to named business or technical owners.
8. Sign-off records: Documented stakeholder review and approval of agreed process deliverables.

Minimum Requirements

• At least 10 years of relevant experience in process engineering, business process analysis, business transformation or continuous improvement.
• Proven experience within Corporate and Investment Banking, transaction banking or an equivalent complex banking environment.
• Strong understanding of South African banking processes and payment operations.
• Practical understanding of banking accounting, transaction posting and reconciliation principles.
• Advanced business and technical process modelling capabilities, including BPMN 2.0.
• Experience documenting complex, end-to-end processes across multiple systems and business functions.
• Ability to translate business requirements into detailed technical specifications that development and testing teams can implement directly.
• Strong experience in stakeholder facilitation, requirements analysis, process validation and business sign-off.
• Experience identifying process inefficiencies and delivering measurable improvements.
• Knowledge of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and continuous improvement principles.
• Strong analytical, documentation, communication and problem-solving skills.

Preferred Technical and Domain Experience

• ISO 20022 payment messaging and field-level data mapping.
• DMN decision modelling and business rule management.
• Mainframe-based banking environments and legacy system replacement.
• Payment engine modernisation and core banking transformation.
• General ledger, suspense accounts, reconciliation and financial control processes.
• System integrations, APIs, data flows and exception handling.
• Process modelling and repository tools such as ARIS, Signavio, Bizagi or equivalent.
• User acceptance testing, test scenario design and requirements traceability.
• Lean Six Sigma certification, preferably Black Belt where required by the programme.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance will be measured against:

• Number of existing and target-state business processes documented.
• Number of existing and target-state technical processes documented.
• Completeness, accuracy and traceability of process specifications.
• Number and percentage of deliverables approved by business owners.
• Quality and usability of specifications for development and testing teams.
• Identification and resolution of process gaps and undocumented legacy behaviour.
• Adherence to agreed project milestones and delivery timelines.
• Stakeholder satisfaction and the effectiveness of cross-functional collaboration.

Contact information

Ayesha Mohamed