Our client a Global Payments Firm is currently carrying out a project for a leading financial services player in Oman. To support with this, our client is looking to onboard a cards product manager to join their team. 

This individual will own and deliver the end-to-end launch and lifecycle management of new debit and credit card products, acting as the central business lead across Marketing, Finance, Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Legal, and external partners. Drive launch readiness and post-launch performance improvements measured through acquisition, activation, spend, profitability, usage, and attrition KPIs. 

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end launch plan (scope, milestones, dependencies, risks, mitigations) to achieve on-time go live readiness measured by schedule adherence and launch gating completion.
• Define and manage business requirements and prioritized backlog (user stories / acceptance criteria) to maximize delivered value measured by release predictability and stakeholder acceptance.
• Coordinate cross-functional forums (Marketing/Tech/Ops/Risk/Compliance/Legal/Sales/Service) to resolve blockers and align decisions measured by reduced decision latency and fewer critical path slippages.
• Ensure scheme rules, certifications, and dispute requirements are embedded in product design and operating procedures measured by first-pass certification outcomes and dispute process compliance.
• Oversee UAT planning/execution, defect triage, and go-live approvals to improve quality measured by UAT pass rate, defect leakage, and post-live incident reduction.
• Define and refine end-to-end operational processes (onboarding, approvals, fulfillment, servicing, and dispute handling) to strengthen customer experience measured by reduced complaints, faster resolution SLAs, and lower dispute ratios.
• Manage external partner delivery (scheme, processor, vendors) including third-party risk considerations and exit/continuity planning measured by SLA adherence and reduced vendor-related incidents.  
• Track post-launch performance and run continuous improvement initiatives (pricing/benefits/value proposition/process fixes) measured by acquisition, activation, spend, profitability, usage, and attrition trends.
• Conduct and synthesize secondary market/competitor insights to shape roadmap decisions measured by roadmap hit-rate and uplift in prioritized KPI outcomes.

KPIs:

• Time-to-market / time-to-go-live (days from approved scope to launch)
• UAT quality (pass rate; defect leakage to production)
• Acquisition & onboarding conversion (applications ? approved ? issued) • Activation rate (issued ? first transaction)
• Spend/usage (active cards; purchase volume; frequency)
• Profitability (contribution margin / unit economics)
• Disputes/chargebacks performance (dispute rate; resolution SLA compliance)

Knowledge and Experience:

• Card transaction lifecycle knowledge (authorization ? clearing ? settlement) and operational impacts on product performance.
• Scheme dispute/chargeback lifecycle knowledge, including process steps and governance expectations.
• PCI DSS fundamentals for payment account data protection and secure operating practices.
• EMV ecosystem and certification/testing concepts to support chip/contactless product deployment and acceptance readiness.
• Third-party/vendor risk management fundamentals for critical service delivery dependencies in financial services.
• EMV Payment Tokenisation concepts and use cases for digital enablement and PAN risk reduction.
• EMV 3-D Secure (3DS) knowledge for e-commerce authentication and fraud/approval performance optimization.
• Familiarity with Central Bank of Oman payments oversight priorities and published payments/fintech policy landscape (including tokenization guidance references).
• Experience working with scheme and/or processors and managing scheme certifications and delivery forums.

This is a 12 months contractual (with potential for further extension) role based in Muscat, Oman.