Product Lead - UPI Acquiring

Role Overview Lead the UPI acquiring charter for Airtel Payments Bank, owning merchant & payment aggregator ecosystem , driving product strategy, execution, regulatory alignment, and revenue growth while ensuring high reliability, fraud control, and superior merchant experience at scale . Key Responsibilities 1. Product Strategy & Roadmap Own the end-to-end roadmap for UPI acquiring (static and dynamic QR, intent, collect, autopay/subscriptions) Drive feature enhancements through market & competitor analysis and ecosystem trends Perform cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to prioritize high-impact initiatives Manage a well-groomed backlog (JIRA) , balancing revenue growth, cost efficiency, and platform stability Define and drive quarterly & annual roadmaps , ensuring alignment with business goals Identify and work on additional opportunities leading to an incremental impact on bank’s key matrix. Provide leadership visibility via structured reviews on roadmap progress, delivery, and outcomes 2. Merchant & Aggregator Ecosystem Build and scale partnerships with Payment Aggregators and key merchants Drive solutions for merchant onboarding, activation, lifecycle management Expand online & offline acceptance footprint in collaboration with Alliance, GTM and sales teams 3. Growth & Monetization Drive TPV, transactions, and active merchant growth for UPI acquiring Identify and scale monetization levers (pricing, VAS, cross-sell opportunities) Optimize merchant journey: onboarding → activation → engagement → retention 4. Execution & Stakeholder Management Partner with engineering teams to ensure timely delivery (grooming, sprint planning, execution) Create clear PRDs, user stories, and Figma-based user flows/screens Ensure “First-Time-Right” delivery via: Well-defined acceptance criteria & test cases Strong oversight of UAT and release readiness Drive seamless cross-functional collaboration (risk, compliance, ops, finance) Manage NPCI & regulatory engagement : Work on/with NPCI communications, circulars, and discussions Respond to regulatory queries and ensure timely compliance implementation Collaborate with banking operations teams to: Ensure smooth refunds, reversals, and chargebacks Design & enhance SOPs to improve operational efficiency Collaborate with Alliance team to discuss possible business opportunities and build that in product roadmap. Work with internal control functional teams to identify potential suspicious patterns, build rules, and define consequence management around it. Lead a team of 2-3 product managers and product Ops and define career paths for them. Work will all the stakeholders in collaborative environments. 5. Risk, Compliance & Operations Ensure adherence to RBI/NPCI guidelines Strengthen fraud detection, dispute management, and reconciliation processes Optimize settlements and merchant experience 6. Data, Monitoring & Performance Own key metrics: TPV, success rates, merchant activation, retention, cost per transaction Enable reporting, dashboards, and real-time alerts for: Success/failure trends (overall & merchant-level) Fraud monitoring and risk signals System performance & stability Drive data-led decision-making and targeted merchant-level interventions Qualifications 9–12 years in payments/product management (strong UPI acquiring experience preferred) Deep understanding of UPI ecosystem, NPCI guidelines, and merchant payments Experience with Payment Aggregators / PSPs / large-scale merchant ecosystems Strong analytical, execution, and stakeholder management skills