Senior Director - Pricing & Commercial - FinTech/Banking

Description:

Role Mandate (What This Person Owns):

Primary Objective:

- Drive pricing competitiveness and margin optimization by leading strategic negotiations with:

- Acquiring banks

- Issuer banks

- Card networks (Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, Amex)

- UPI / NPCI ecosystem

- Alternate rails (BNPL partnerships, wallets, cross-border rails)

This is a P&L impact role, not a relationship manager role.

Core Responsibilities

Commercial & Pricing Strategy

- Design and execute pricing strategy across payment instruments (Cards, UPI, NetBanking, Wallets, BNPL, International).

- Negotiate MDR, interchange, gateway fees, routing economics, incentives, and volume-linked rebates.

- Drive blended take rate optimization.

- Build cost modeling frameworks (issuer vs acquirer economics).

- Optimize routing strategy basis commercial constructs.

B. Strategic

Bank & Network Negotiations

- Lead enterprise-level negotiations with:

- Top acquiring banks (HDFC, Axis, ICICI, SBI, etc.)

- Large issuer banks

- Networks and NPCI

- Structure volume commitments, incentive slabs, marketing funds.

- Re-negotiate contracts to improve margins periodically.

- Stay aligned with RBI circulars, interchange caps, UPI MDR regulations.

- Ensure pricing strategy remains compliant yet optimized.

- Manage relationships with NPCI & network regulatory teams.

- Partner with:

- Product (routing engine logic)

- Finance (margin modeling)

- Enterprise Sales (large merchant pricing support)

- Risk & Compliance

Revenue & Margin Impact

- Own annual cost of payments optimization targets.

- Deliver defined bps improvement in blended margin.

- Influence merchant pricing strategy based on backend economics.