Job Description

Purpose of the role

To manage operations within a business area and maintain processes, risk management initiatives and compliance with relevant regulators. 

Accountabilities

• Identification of trends and opportunities to improve areas and develop new process and procedures through the monitoring and analysis of operation data and performance metrices.
• Management of operations for a business area and promote efficient processes, risk management and compliance initiatives to support the bank's operations.
• Collaboration with internal stakeholders (including business leaders, project manager and SMEs) and external stakeholders (including vendors and service providers) to support business operations and promote alignment with the bank's objectives and SLAs.
• Management of operational professionals and provide guidance, coaching and support to improve colleagues' delivery quality.
• Management and development of KPIs to measure the effectiveness of operation functions, utilising data and technology to support the identification of areas that require improvement.
• Compliance with all regulatory requirements and internal policies related to customer experience.
• Creation of a safe environment for colleagues to speak up, actively and regularly encourage and solicit feedback to ensure people agenda remains focused on the right areas.
• Management of attrition by working closely with HR in implementing retention initiatives for work force.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

The Director, Head of India Onboarding and KYC Operations - BPL (based in Pune (preferred) or Gurugram) is accountable for leading the Onboarding, KYC Refresh, Remediation and Quality functions for BPL based in India. The role holder will own and simplify the complex operating model covering c.250 FTE across four locations and two external vendors.

The role owns the build and ongoing performance of the onboarding operating model, ensuring merchants are onboarded efficiently, compliantly, and with a consistently high-quality experience that accelerates time-to-revenue. The role will also oversee the ongoing performance of KYC refresh activity (standard and high risk) and significant KYC remediation activity, ensuring activity is performed efficiently, compliantly, with excellent quality and cost performance.

Operationally land the significant technology and process change driven by the Return To Satisfactory programme and large-scale transformation agenda for the BPL organisation.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Operating Model

• Define and own the operating model for India Onboarding and KYC Operations.

• Establish clear ownership, governance, service levels, and escalation paths across the onboarding, refresh and remediation journeys performed in India sites and by vendors.

Organisation Design & Leadership

• Design, build, and lead the India Onboarding and KYC organisation, including role design, skills, capacity, and sourcing strategy (internal and external).

• Create a strong leadership team and culture focused on delivery excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Define and maintain clear engagement models with Sales, Risk, Compliance, Operations, Product, and Technology.

Delivery & Operational Performance

• Own operational delivery performance across all merchant segments, ensuring consistent execution against agreed SLAs and KRIs.

• Drive improvements in onboarding, refresh and remediation cycle times, quality, predictability and efficiency.

• Ensure onboarding, refresh and remediation processes are robust, scalable, and compliant with regulatory and control requirements.

• Champion automation and tooling to reduce manual effort and improve merchant and colleague experience.

Risk Partnership

• Act as the lead for KYC remediation activity, partnering with Financial Crime to define remediation approaches and ensure they are operationally viable

• Own and deliver the remediation plans, defining MI required to oversee and govern populations and reporting to senior risk management as required

Scope

The role provides SRE enablement across Technology Operations, with an initial emphasis on Q3 launch readiness for priority services, including Next Generation Gateway and Service Portal. The scope includes designing and establishing the foundational SRE capability, reliability standards, service telemetry, SLO / SLI definition, alert hygiene, operational readiness, runbook quality, automation opportunities, incident learning and reliability improvement planning across both internally managed and provider-delivered services.

The role is not accountable for feature delivery, application support ownership or the operation of a traditional production support function. Engineering will remain accountable for service ownership and recovery under the “you build it, you run it” model; the SRE Lead will enable consistent reliability practice, assure readiness and drive systemic service improvement.

Key Deliverables

• Operational readiness and successful landing of all planned technology/procedural change linked to Payments Return To Satisfactory programme

• Define and execute the target operating model for India Onboarding and KYC Operations department

• Oversight and accountability for the successful planning and execution of all remediation activity and populations

• Delivery of green SLA/KRI performance for all activity processed by India Onboarding and KYC Operations

• Own and deliver the optimisation roadmap and efficiency targets for India Onboarding and KYC Operations

Essential Experience

• Significant Onboarding and KYC operational leadership experience, with specific experience in FinTech or E-Pay / Payment Acquiring is a must

• Proven experience of target operating model and location strategy design and implementation

• Strong understanding of KYC and financial crime requirements for UK and European markets

• Strong understanding of customer journeys and client sectors across SME and Corp

• Demonstrable experience of process optimisation through process improvement / technology enhancements

• Significant experience in operational management disciplines driving performance enhancements across quality, cost, delivery and customer experience

• Able to translate complex financial crime issues into clear operational risk, service impact and executive-ready recommendations.

• This is a Pune or Gurugram based position and is not eligible for visa sponsorship or relocation support. Applicants must already hold the legal right to work in this location and live there.

• This role is intended for candidates who are already operating at Director level.

• Advanced knowledge of KYC and AML requirements for UK and European activity

• Ability to design and establish new operating capabilities in a greenfield or scale-up environment, translating strategic intent into practical standards, governance, routines, tooling requirements, operational processes and measurable outcomes.

• Strong appreciation of operational resilience, control, auditability, regulatory expectations and supplier accountability within a modern fintech technology environment.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convert technical reliability issues into clear operational risk, service impact, investment choices and executive-ready recommendations.

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.

In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years. 

For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.