The Japan Research Institute (JRI) Limited is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) Group. SMBC Group is a Tokyo-based bank holding company that is ranked among the largest 25 banks globally by assets under management. JRI provides comprehensive, highly value-added information services through the coordinated application of its 3 functions. i.e. information systems, consulting and think-tank. As a system integrator, JRI offers services in IT strategy planning, implementation and outsourcing to a broad range of industries and activities. JRI Singapore currently supports the overall IT functions of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in Asia Pacific Region.

Responsibilities

• Own the full delivery strategy for Payments projects, aligning with enterprise architecture and long-term technology roadmap.
• Define and enforce delivery frameworks including engineering practices, SDLC gates, release governance, documentation standards, and quality controls.
Drive technical delivery excellence with complete traceability from business requirement design source code testing
• release.
• Supervise solution design, detailed technical specs, code repository governance, coding standards, peer reviews, and test coverage strategy.
• Lead SIT/UAT planning, defect triage, tracking, closure, and ensure testing completeness across all modules.
• Oversee release planning, cutover strategy, dry-runs, deployment approval, and post-release stabilization.
• Establish operational readiness including monitoring, capacity planning, resilience testing, and fallback/rollback procedures.
• Manage vendor and offshore team delivery governance, productivity KPIs, and quality benchmarking.
• Lead executive-level reporting with structured updates: KPIs, milestones, risks, dependencies, and scope changes.

Project Delivery Management

• Lead projects from initiation to closure ensuring compliance with requirements, timelines, budgets, and quality.
• Update the WBS, set milestones, and manage progress appropriately.
• Manage tasks by prioritizing and adjusting the scope as appropriate.
• Create detailed project plans including scope, timeline, budget forecasts, and resource allocation.
• Manage full SDLC lifecycle including requirements, design, build, testing, release, deployment, and post-implementation support.
• Coordinate and govern Dev, SA, QA, Migration, and vendor delivery teams.
• Monitor progress, manage risks, escalate issues, and enforce mitigation actions.
• Ensure system delivery activities remain aligned to overall master program plan.
• Maintain delivery discipline through structured oversight, quality gates, and documentation reviews.
• Ability to develop clear narratives and visual materials to effectively communicate complex topics to diverse stakeholders

System Integration

• Proven experience integrating vendor products into banking environments, with a strong understanding of end to end system architecture and dependencies.

Delivery strategy and change management

• Ability to define and maintain delivery strategy amidst evolving interfaces and requirements, ensuring changes are effectively tracked, managed, and incorporated into the overall project execution.

Vendor and stakeholder Coordination

• Collaborate with Bank’s IT PM, project teams, operation team, platform teams, vendors, external systems (channels, accounts, etc.) involved in remittances and other projects for alignment.
• Communicate delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and decisions to senior management.
• Support Delivery Program Manager with detailed delivery analysis and reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple vendor teams and coordinate cross regional stakeholders to drive testing and delivery outcomes.

Team Leadership & Resource Management

• Lead all technical teams (applications teams, infrastructure teams, security teams.etc), project teams and vendors ensuring high-performance culture and accountability.
• Provide clear direction, prioritization, and support to ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and agreed quality standards
• Drive collaboration, transparency, and strong cross-functional engagement.
• Ensure consistent engineering standards across all delivery locations.

Quality & Compliance Assurance

• Build strong project management disciplines and governance, including planning, risk management, budget controls, issue escalations and stakeholder management.
• Ensure compliance with bank’s IT governance, audit, and risk policies.
• Supervise quality assurance across design, development, testing, and release.
• Participate in post-implementation improvement cycles and lessons learned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or equivalent.
• Minimum 10 years of senior-level IT project delivery experience in financial services, preferably in payments.
• Strong domain expertise in corporate banking, cross-border payments, and payment system integrations.
• Proven experience managing full SDLC including design, source code governance, testing coverage, and release cycles.
• Strong leadership, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent communication and executive presentation skills.
• Track record of leading complex multi-team, multi-vendor technology projects to successful completion.
• Ability to review and quality check deliverables (requirements definition documents, design documents, test specifications) to discover and correct deficiencies and errors
• Knowledge of the technical configuration and integration methods of remittance systems (API integration, message formats, middleware, etc.)
• Basic knowledge of financial industry regulations and compliance, and understanding of unique quality and security requirements