About the Role
This role is pivotal in driving growth at the company through strategic fintech partnerships. The focus is on finding, signing, and managing partnerships that deliver new customers, products, and revenue streams. The Manager will oversee each partnership from initial discussions to signed contracts, launch, and ongoing performance, ensuring that each partnership is commercially viable and mutually beneficial.
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Key Responsibilities
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Partnership Strategy and Pipeline
- Build the fintech partnership strategy aligned with the commercial plan and product roadmap.
- Map the UAE and regional fintech landscape to identify high-value partners.
- Manage a pipeline of partnership opportunities prioritized by commercial value and fit.
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Deal Structuring and Negotiation
- Lead negotiations from initial meetings to signed agreements.
- Structure commercial models for each partnership including revenue share, referral fees, and pricing.
- Develop business cases for each deal in collaboration with Business Intelligence to outline expected volumes, revenue, costs, and margins.
- Prepare term sheets, MoUs, and partnership agreements with legal oversight to protect revenue and data rights.
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Due Diligence and Approvals
- Evaluate each partner's financial strength, technology, security, and regulatory compliance with the help of Compliance, Risk, and IT teams.
- Support strategic opportunities like licensing, joint ventures, or investments, working with external advisers as needed.
- Navigate partnership proposals through internal approvals and present to management and the board when necessary.
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Launch and Integration
- Collaborate with Product and IT teams to plan technical integrations from scoping through to go-live.
- Define go-to-market plans with partners including target customers, joint offers, and marketing strategies.
- Ensure readiness of operations, settlement, reconciliation, and support prior to launch.
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Partner Performance Management
- Monitor partnership performance including volumes, revenue, active customers, and service levels.
- Conduct regular business reviews with partners and agree on actions for growth and resolution of issues.
- Confirm accurate calculation and collection of partner revenue shares and fees with Revenue Assurance.
- Recommend next steps for each partnership based on performance outcomes.
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Market Intelligence and Ecosystem
- Stay informed of fintech trends, emerging players, and competitor partnerships in the UAE and broader region.
- Follow relevant Central Bank of the UAE regulations impacting partnerships in areas like stored value and retail payment services.
- Represent the company at fintech events and forums, building relationships with fintech hubs and investors.
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
- An MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification is advantageous.
Experience
- 8+ years in partnerships, alliances, business development, or corporate development within payments, fintech, or banking.
- Proven success in establishing and growing commercial partnerships with measurable revenue outcomes.
- Experience in negotiating revenue share, licensing, and white-label agreements.
- Familiarity with payment gateways, acquirers, wallets, BNPL, issuing processors, or card schemes is strongly preferred.
- Existing network within the UAE fintech and payments ecosystem is highly advantageous.
Technical and Payments Knowledge
- Understanding of the payments value chain: gateways, acquiring, payment facilitators, schemes, issuing, wallets, and settlement.
- Knowledge of payment methods including cards, tokenized wallets, BNPL, and account-to-account payments.
- Familiarity with integrations such as APIs, SDKs, hosted pages, and settlement files.
- Understanding of partnership economics including MDR, interchange, revenue share, and unit economics.
- Familiarity with UAE payments regulations, including Central Bank frameworks regarding stored value and open finance.
Skills
- Strong negotiation skills with the ability to close mutually beneficial deals.
- Commercially savvy and analytical, able to develop and validate business cases.
- Ability to build trust with founders, executives, and technical teams.
- Effective communicator, able to present clearly to management and board-level audiences.
- Capable of managing multiple partners and projects simultaneously, ensuring successful launch and ongoing performance.
