Principal Payments Architect

About the Position

Principal Payments Architect

Location: London (Hybrid)

Practice Area: Technology & Engineering

Type: Permanent

Lead innovative payments transformation across financial services.

About Capco

Capco is a global leader in technology and business consulting, dedicated to driving digital innovation and transformation in financial services. We’ve partnered with over 100 clients worldwide - from pioneering FinTech's to established global institutions - helping them adapt, compete, and scale in a rapidly evolving industry. With more than 30 offices globally, we combine deep expertise in banking, payments, capital markets, insurance, wealth and asset management, and energy with an agile, inclusive, and entrepreneurial culture.

Role Overview

You will play a central role in shaping and delivering some of our clients' most critical payments transformation programmes, applying your expertise in enterprise and solution architecture alongside your deep knowledge of payments. You will help modernise core payment platforms and enable new digital payment capabilities while guiding clients through complex regulatory, operational, and technology change. Your work will influence how banks and financial institutions build, operate, and innovate across domestic and international payment ecosystems.

Working closely with engineers, you will design scalable and resilient payment solutions while helping senior stakeholders shape long-term payments strategies and investment decisions. You will also lead high-performing teams, mentor junior technologists, and contribute to the growth of our Technology & Engineering Practice through thought leadership, community engagement, and supporting new client opportunities. You'll be encouraged to adopt approved AI-enabled tools and automation to enhance architecture design, accelerate analysis, improve documentation quality and support more informed decision-making, while applying appropriate human judgement, governance and responsible AI principles.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and modernisation of complex payment platforms across domestic, international, real-time, on-us and card payment ecosystems, delivering scalable, resilient and secure solutions.
• Define payments technology strategies, target architectures and transformation roadmaps while working closely with business, engineering and delivery teams to guide implementation and investment decisions.
• Apply modern architecture practices including microservices, event-driven design, cloud-native technologies and DevOps, leveraging approved AI-enabled workflows where appropriate to improve productivity, design quality and delivery outcomes while maintaining human oversight.
• Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, mentor technical teams and contribute to Capco's Technology & Engineering community through thought leadership and business development.
• Ensure architectural decisions align with regulatory requirements, security, resilience, governance and responsible AI principles where AI-enabled capabilities form part of the solution landscape.

Requirements

• Proven experience designing or modernising payment platforms across Faster Payments, Bacs, CHAPS, SWIFT, SEPA, Open Banking, ISO 20022 and related payment ecosystems.
• Deep expertise in enterprise and solution architecture, distributed systems, cloud technologies, modern engineering practices and recognised frameworks such as TOGAF and Domain-Driven Design.
• Strong consulting, stakeholder management and leadership experience with the ability to influence senior technology and business decision-makers.
• Experience delivering large-scale payments transformation programmes using agile delivery methodologies and modern engineering practices.
• A curiosity for AI-enabled ways of working and an understanding of how approved AI tools, automation and responsible AI governance can improve architectural delivery while maintaining appropriate review, auditability and human judgement.

Nice to Have

• Senior consulting experience delivering large-scale payments transformation programmes.
• Experience leading pre-sales engagements, proposals and commercial estimates.
• Awareness of emerging technologies including digital wallets, tokenisation, embedded finance and AI (including Generative AI and Agentic AI), AI-driven fraud detection and intelligent automation within payment ecosystems.
• Knowledge of financial crime, AML controls, payment fraud prevention and security architecture.
• Exposure to international payment ecosystems and relevant architecture or cloud certifications such as TOGAF or AWS.

We Offer

• Core benefits: discretionary bonus, competitive pension, health and dental insurance, life insurance, and critical illness cover.
• Mental health: access to CareFirst, Unmind, Aviva consultations, and in-house first aiders.
• Family-friendly: maternity, adoption, shared parental leave, plus paid leave for sickness, pregnancy loss, fertility treatment, menopause, and bereavement.
• Family care: 8 complimentary backup care sessions for emergency childcare or elder care.
• Holiday flexibility: 5 weeks of annual leave with the option to buy or sell days.
• Continuous learning: minimum 40 hours of annual training, including workshops, certifications, e-learning, and ongoing business coaching.
• Extra perks: Gympass (Wellhub), travel insurance, Tastecard, season ticket loans, and Cycle to Work scheme.

About the Company

We’re committed to making our recruitment process accessible and straightforward. If you need adjustments at any stage, please let us know. We value each person’s unique perspective and contribution. At Capco, we believe that being yourself is your greatest strength. Our #BeYourselfAtWork culture encourages individuality and collaboration-a mindset that shapes how we work with clients and each other every day.

We have been informed of recruitment scams targeting the public. Always verify identities before engaging in recruitment communication. All official Capco communication will be conducted via a Capco recruiter.

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