About the Company:

We are a leading fintech organization focused on building innovative payment solutions for merchants, enterprises, and financial institutions. We are looking for an experienced leader to drive strategic partnerships with issuing banks and payment networks to accelerate growth across cards, digital payments, embedded finance, and value-added services.

Position Overview:

The Head of Issuer Alliances will be responsible for developing and managing strategic relationships with issuing banks, card networks, fintech partners, and financial institutions. This leadership role will drive commercial partnerships, issuer engagement strategies, co-branded card initiatives, digital payment innovations, and revenue growth while working closely with internal product, sales, technology, marketing, and compliance teams.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Partnership Management:

- Develop and execute the overall issuer alliance strategy aligned with the company's business objectives.

- Build and manage long-term relationships with issuing banks, NBFCs, payment networks, and strategic financial partners.

- Identify new partnership opportunities that drive business growth and enhance the company's payments ecosystem.

- Represent the organization during executive-level discussions with banking and financial institution partners.

Business Development & Commercial Growth:

- Drive commercial negotiations and partnership agreements with issuer banks.

- Identify opportunities for new payment products, card programs, loyalty partnerships, and embedded finance solutions.

- Increase transaction volumes, issuer participation, and partner-led revenue.

- Develop joint go-to-market strategies with issuer partners.

Issuer Program Management:

- Lead issuer onboarding and partner integration initiatives.

- Manage issuer relationship lifecycle from onboarding to expansion.

- Monitor partner performance against agreed KPIs and commercial commitments.

- Resolve strategic issues and ensure high partner satisfaction.

Product Collaboration:

- Work closely with Product and Technology teams to launch innovative issuer-led payment solutions.

- Collaborate on credit cards, prepaid cards, corporate cards, virtual cards, BNPL, tokenization, recurring payments, UPI-linked credit, and digital banking initiatives.

- Provide market intelligence to influence product roadmap and innovation.

Stakeholder Management:

- Partner with Sales, Enterprise Business, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Legal, and Marketing teams.

- Coordinate executive business reviews with strategic partners.

- Build strong relationships with regulators, industry bodies, and payment ecosystem participants where required.

Market Intelligence:

- Track industry trends across issuing banks, payment networks, fintechs, digital lending, and regulatory developments.

- Benchmark competitor partnerships and identify emerging opportunities.

Leadership:

- Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing partnerships team.

- Establish governance, reporting frameworks, and partnership scorecards.

- Drive a culture of collaboration, accountability, and execution excellence.

Key Deliverables:

- Expansion of issuer partnerships.

- Increased transaction volumes through issuer channels.

- New strategic alliances with banks and financial institutions.

- Successful launch of co-branded and issuer-led payment products.

- Achievement of revenue and partnership growth targets.

- Improved partner engagement and satisfaction metrics.

- Strong executive relationships across the banking ecosystem.