Lead Analyst - Deposit & Payment Operations

FC Global Services India LLP (First Citizens India), a part of First Citizens BancShares, Inc., a top 20 U.S. financial institution, is a global capability center (GCC) based in Bengaluru. Our India-based teams benefit from the company’s over 125-year legacy of strength and stability. First Citizens India is responsible for delivering value and managing risks for our lines of business. We are particularly proud of our strong, relationship-driven culture and our long-term approach, which are deeply ingrained in our talented workforce. This is evident across all key areas of our operations, including Technology, Enterprise Operations, Finance, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, and Credit Administration. We are seeking talented individuals to join us in our mission of providing solutions fit for our clients’ greatest ambitions.
Job Description:
Value Proposition
Manage complex and time-sensitive wire operations activities where precision, sound judgment, and independent decision-making, protect client funds and support the reliability of the bank’s payment infrastructure. Apply strong wire operations expertise to resolve complex transactions, strengthen controls, improve processing accuracy, and support continuous improvement across domestic and international payment channels.
Job Details
Position Title: Lead Analyst - Deposit & Payment Operations
Career Level: P3
Job Category: Manager
Role Type: Hybrid
Job Location: Bangalore
About the Team:
The Wire Operations team is responsible for the controlled execution, monitoring, investigation, and reconciliation of domestic and international wire transfers. The team supports time-sensitive, high-value payments across channels such as Fedwire and SWIFT while maintaining strong operational controls, regulatory compliance, and service standards. The function works closely with onshore Operations, Treasury, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and other business partners to ensure accurate and timely funds movement.
Impact
The Lead Analyst plays a critical role in ensuring the accurate, timely, and controlled execution of wire operations during assigned shifts. The role independently manages high-risk and time-critical transactions, resolves complex payment exceptions, and ensures disciplined queue management and shift handovers. By connecting operational processes, payment systems, data, and controls, the role also identifies and drives technology and process improvements that enhance payment accuracy, operational resilience, straight-through processing, and the overall control environment.
Key Deliverables
Shift Ownership and Wire Operations: Independently manage assigned shift operations and ensure accurate, timely end-to-end processing, verification, release, monitoring, repair, return, and reconciliation of domestic and international USD and foreign-currency wire transfers.
Complex Exception & Escalation management: Serve as a key escalation point for complex and time-sensitive wire exceptions, including non-STP, duplicate, delayed, rejected, returned, or misrouted transactions, driving timely investigation and resolution within established service standards.
Payment Messaging Expertise: Apply strong working knowledge of Fedwire, SWIFT, and ISO 20022 payment messages to identify formatting, routing, settlement, and data-quality issues and determine appropriate repair or escalation actions.
Risk and Control Oversight: Ensure adherence to operational controls, authentication requirements, approval limits, sanctions and AML-related controls, and established escalation protocols to safeguard payment integrity and minimize operational risk.
Queue, Cut-off, and Workflow Management: Proactively monitor payment queues, prioritize critical transactions, manage cut-off and settlement risks, track aged and pending items, and ensure effective shift handovers during business-as-usual operations, volume spikes, and system disruptions.
Techno-Functional Analysis: Translate operational challenges, control gaps, and business requirements into clear process flows, user stories, acceptance criteria, test scenarios, and measurable solution outcomes.
Change Delivery and Testing: Partner with technology and product teams on system enhancements, payment migrations, automation, and workflow changes; lead impact assessment, user acceptance testing, defect triage, implementation readiness, and post-release validation.
Data, Automation and Operational insights: Leverage operational data and technology to identify trends, reduce manual intervention, improve straight-through processing, strengthen controls, and develop meaningful dashboards and exception insights.
Subject matter expertise and Operational Guidance: Serve as a subject matter expert, provide technical guidance to peers, conduct knowledge sessions, review complex items when required, and promote consistent operational decision-making without formal people-management responsibility.
Stakeholder Management: Effectively communicate payment risks, incidents, operational dependencies, change impacts, and resolution status to Operations, Treasury, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and onshore stakeholders
Governance and Reporting: Maintain accurate and audit-ready operational documentation and reporting across transaction volumes, service performance, exceptions, ageing, incidents, control results, and improvement initiatives.
Operational Resilience: Support business continuity and incident-management activities, including assessment of operational impact, recovery validation, backlog prioritization, and controlled execution of approved workarounds during system or network disruptions.
.
Audit and Regulatory Support: Provide accurate evidence, transaction analysis, process documentation, and subject matter expertise in support of internal reviews, external audits, regulatory requests, and control assessments.
Skills and Qualification
Functional Skills
Wire Operations Expertise: Extensive hands-on knowledge of end-to-end domestic and international wire processing, including payment validation, processing, release, monitoring, repair, investigations, returns, recalls, settlement, and reconciliation.
Payment Systems & Messaging: Strong working knowledge of Fedwire, SWIFT payment messaging, correspondent banking, payment routing, cut-off management, value dating, and USD and foreign-currency payment flows.
ISO 20022 Knowledge: Working knowledge of ISO 20022 payment messages, with the ability to interpret structured payment data, identify validation or formatting issues, and assess downstream operational impacts.
Risk & Controls: Strong understanding of operational risk, maker-checker controls, sanctions screening, AML requirements, payment authentication, audit readiness, and payment governance, with the ability to consistently apply established controls.
Independent Operational Leadership: Proven ability to independently manage shift priorities, payment queues, critical cut-offs, complex escalations, and operational disruptions while ensuring effective handovers and service continuity.
Subject Matter Expertise: Ability to serve as a wire operations SME, provide technical guidance to peers, share knowledge, support complex transaction reviews, and promote consistent operational decision-making without formal people-management responsibility.
Stakeholder Management & Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex payment, operational, risk, and system issues to Operations, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Treasury, and other key stakeholders.
Technical Skills
Payment & Workflow Systems: Strong working knowledge of wire-processing platforms, payment applications, workflow-management tools, and operational reporting systems used to process, monitor, investigate, and reconcile payment transactions.
Data Analysis: Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, with the ability to analyze large operational datasets, identify trends and exceptions, perform root-cause analysis, and translate data into actionable operational insights.
Documentation & Presentations: Proficiency in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for developing process documentation, procedures, management presentations, analytical summaries, and clear stakeholder communications.
Reporting & Visualization: Familiarity with reporting and data-visualization tools, such as Power BI or equivalent technologies, to monitor operational performance, exceptions, ageing, volumes, and key risk or control indicators.
Automation & Digital Solutions: Exposure to automation and emerging technologies, including RPA, Automation anywhere and AI-enabled solutions, with the ability to identify opportunities to reduce manual intervention and improve operational efficiency and controls.
Testing & Change Implementation: Experience supporting UAT, payment-system enhancements, system implementations, migrations, and digital transformation initiatives, inc