Director - Strategic Partnerships (Central Bank Digital Currency-CBDC & Real Time/Instant Payments)
ACI Worldwide
Total years of experience :31 years, 1 Months
ACI Worldwide (ACI - 4, 000 employees), an U.S.A. Global Payments Co.
In this global role, I manage ACI's future vision towards the CBDC inclusion as a core product subject. I also manage the RTPS Product Inclusion, Strategic Partnership management, and RTPS Mergers / Acquisitions / Investments.
Responsibilities:
Central Bank Digital Currency
Lead ACI product discussions on CBDCs (Retail, Wholesale, Multiple, Synthetic), Stablecoins & Corp. coins, towards determining the native-new CBDC payments rail, Central Infrastructure roadmap, CBDC framework inclusion and interoperability.
CBDC Sales Enablement & External Thought Leadership actions like training videos, blogs, interviews and external messaging.
Head CBDC and Stablecoin research, review technology partners and monitor Central Banks / BIS / G20 / G7 policies.
Developed thorough partner relationships with Global CBDC Central Infrastructure (CI) partners such as R3, Consensys and G+D as a part of the CBDC activities for ACI.
Achievement: - Submitted Internal Whitepaper on wholesale/retail CBDC enablement in ACI solutions. It is a 5-year (3-phase) plan enabling CBDC and Stablecoin acceptance for P2P / Merchants / Interbank payments rails and global cross-border payments. i.e.,
Central Infrastructure (CI) solutions,
On-Premise Acquiring / Issuing engines
Enterprise Payments Hub,
Digital Overlay Services for the last-mile CBDC acceptance through payments apps.
On-Demand Hosted Managed Services payments business
Native-new CBDC Central Infrastructure.
Real-Time Payments System
Business Head for the ACI-MGS Joint Venture and, enhancement of the ACI Real Time Payments Engine for India's NPCI-UPI.
Track High Value & Low Value RTP / Instant Payments Global Sales Pipeline, monitor Total Contract Value(TCV), Revenue from Sales(RFS), Annual Recurring Revenue(ARR) and hits/skips.
Prepare Monthly/Quarterly performance decks for Management Business Reviews.
RFP teamwork for IP / RTPS engine, CI Hub and Payment Gateways (On-Prem/ SaaS) with Digital Overlays Solns./Services.
Interact with cloud providers such as GC, MS-Azure and RedHat on the client's cloud / containerization strategy as well as facilitate discussions with the product architecture team on the infrastructure sizing.
Central Banks and Banks / Schemes RFPs I have assisted to-date for Real-Time Payments Networks and Digital Overlays proposals are in the Middle East, Africa, LATAM, India, Europe and the USA i.e. the UAE Central Bank, Saudi Central Bank (SCB / SAMA), Benefit Bahrain, Egyptian Banking Corp. (EBC), Ethiopian Central Bank, SIX Payments - Switzerland, Central Bank of Brazil, BORICA Bank Services - Bulgaria, FedNow U.S.A Real-Time PILOT and WalMart Mexico Closed-Loop Real-Time Network.
Partnership Management
Assist Corp. Development on M&A, Finance Admin. and Exec. Leadership requirements with the Partner Founders.
Liaise between Partners and ACI on Product Management, Prof. Services, Pricing Strategy and, Contract Management.
Strategic Business feasibility and Steering Committee reviews for Board-level reporting and implementation.
Alhamrani Universal (AU - 850 employees), a Saudi Co. belonging to the Alhamrani Group of Cos. (AGC - 5, 000 employees).
Responsibilities (Staff strength reporting to me was 16 nos. in the UAE and 122 nos. in Saudi Arabia)
Business Strategy Planning, 360̊̊ Account Management, Agreement negotiations with partners / clients, Pricing Strategy, Procurement & Last Mile / Lifecycle Management of the Diebold ATMs, Ingenico POS & Security products.
As a part of the Intl. Business Development responsibility, I managed RFPs / Sales of Diebold ATMs / Kiosks, Managed Services & Support for the UAE. I also added value-add partners that complemented Alhamrani's ATM and the POS payments businesses.
As a part of the Business Support responsibility, I managed Procurement, Workshop, Staging, Material Planning, Logistic & Warehousing.
Strategic ‘Information Memos’ for sale / investment in Turkish IT companies.
Ensured strict compliance to the US FCPA and the UKBA in all the customer and vendor dealings.
Achievements
• Business Consulting Single Vendor Project - All ATM Services Outsourcing and Payments Acquiring / Processing.
Jakarta Financial Inclusion Project - W-Label Wallets, C-Loop P2P e-commerce / lending & Unattended Payments. Cards Personalization / Processing & Cards Testing S/W / Tools.
• ATM Recyclers BOB UAE & RAK Bank Orders for Diebold Cash Recyclers network expansion
• Diebold KSA/UAE Exclv. Distributor Agreement (KSA IDA & ISPA) & Non-Exclv. Service Partner Agreement (UAE)
• Partnerships Base24 (Concerto), Cards Proc. (AFS), Cash Analytics (P1M1), Innova & others.
• KPI Management Supply Chain Optimization resulted in savings of $1.5M+ & 35% increase in Saudiazation.
EPS, a payments company, implemented the Min. of Fin. order of 9000~ Outsourced ATMs for Financial inclusion & Direct Benefit Transfer.
Responsibilities
Head the ATM RFPs for OPEX, CAPEX & Managed Services
Advise Senior Management on the company’s growth roadmap and Technology diversification into segments like Micro-ATMs, POS, Kiosk, Payment Gateway, Brand-Agnostic OEM partnerships and the future - Cryptos Vault-as-a-Service.
Lead Sales to sell ATM M.S., Min. Guarantee extensions, M.S. takeover, 360̊̊ client view & collections and run Profitability programs i.e. Transaction Improvement, Card + Account Base reviews & Site ROI v/s ATM lifecycle costs.
Supervise the deployment of the MoF ATM project as per agreed deadlines to avoid delayed penalties and Implement Change Management strategies based on my Global experiences & Best Practices.
Achievements
• Canara & BOI Canara ATM Outsourcing RFP (1200 ATMs pan-India) & achieved addn. BOI OPEX 220 ATMs.
• Essar Oil EFT POS Business plan and feasibility for 1, 500 Oil Pump locations all over
• EPS App ATM Geo-location App designed to attract ATM users to use EPS network.
• Collections Dynamic KPIs enforced Staff output & achieved 90% TAT in invoice / collections.
Alhamrani Universal (AU), a Saudi Co. belonging to the Alhamrani Group of Cos. (AGC - 5K employees).
Responsibilities
Promote Diebold’s ATMs & Software Solutions (Remote Management, CRM, Journaling & Security Office). New Self-Service projects with Natl.ID apps, ATMs + Tab integration., biometrics, NFC, smart chip-card apps etc.
Lead major RFPs & Partner contracts for Kiosks, CIT providers, Datacenters etc.
Assisted client tech. teams in Switch planning for D91x / Alternate NDx developments. Ensured quality support through Ops, good teamwork & effective dept. communications.
P&L / FY budgeting, marketing strategy reviews and end-to-end Project Management of strategic projects and Product launches.
Achievements between the UAE and Saudi Arabia
• 2004-12 ENBD Natl ID, GIB Table ATMs & 2 accounts in Yemen, 11% share & 25% clients.
• 2010-12 100% Wincor buyback + 157 nos. Diebold ATMs order from RAK Bank.
• 2010 Expansion to Oman & Yemen & successfully promoted Diebold’s Recycling Technology & Bulk Cheque Deposit in the UAE.
• 2008 Achieved 44 nos. NCR buyback from Mashreq Bank & replaced with Diebold ATMs.
• 2005-10 Expansion to Bahrain (Manama), BNA/Cheque Acceptor with RAK, Mashreq, NBQ, BOB & NBD
• 2003-05 Expansion to the UAE (Dubai), Banc Du Caire (Fujitsu) & Habib Bank AGZ (NCR) acquisition.
• 2001-02 Hybrid Cards with ORGA / G&D, GCC’s 1st Bulk Cash Acceptor (SABB/HSBC, KSA) & EMV projects.
• 1999 Managed KSA’s Diebold Y2K project (1400+ units with 65 engineers) for all of Saudi Arabia's Banks.
• Conduct Demos, Network SPNS ATMs, Y2K project, BASE24 Scripting & ATM Trainings and implemented Centurion’s ATM network via VSAT for Western India, ICICI, HDFC and UTI Bank’s project for Tandem BASE24 Migration.
• Wrote a book ’LET’s GO ON-LINE’ (1997) on ATM networks / software issues.
• Headed the India-wide Ops for HSBC’s Diebold ATMs & Citibank’s Passbook printers.
• Consult on anti-virus measure and VSAT connectivity for the IBM AS/400 KapitiC, Novell (SFT-III) Total Banking Automation.
Installation / Configuration / Support of Novell Network, P.C.s and printers
Education • Jun 1990 - Jun 1992 St. Xavier’s Technical Institute - Bombay Diploma in Electronics & Radio Engineering, 1st Class (After 12th Science in PCMB) • Aug 1992 - Jun 1993 St. Xavier’s Technical Institute - Bombay Certificate Course in Electronics & Computer Systems, 1st Class • Aug 1993 - Jun 1994 St. Xavier’s Technical Institute - Bombay Diploma in Computer Systems & Management, 2nd Class Certifications (on-hand) ------------------------------ Marketing and Sales Impact Jul 99 Jeddah, KSA Arab Development Institute Hypercom POS Solutions Regional Training Dec 99 Jordan Hypercom UK/STS Jordan Management Skills Course Jun 01 Jeddah, KSA Whinney Murray and Co. Self-Service Banking Business Workshop Sep 03 Dubai, UAE Institute of International Research Channels – Global Banking Strategy Apr 04 Dubai, UAE Institute of International Research 3 Day MBA in Financial Management May 06 Dubai, UAE Terrapinn UK Measuring / Monitoring Customer Satisfaction Oct 07 Dubai, UAE Institute of International Research Retail Banking Forum Oct 07 Dubai, UAE Institute of International Research Retail Banking – Delivery Channel Strategy Mar 09 Dubai, UAE Institute of International Research Strategic Selling (Single Sales Objective) Mar 11 Jeddah, KSA Miller Heiman Consulting Large Account Management Process (LAMP) May 11 Jeddah, KSA Miller Heiman Consulting Supply Chain Management Jul 17 Riyadh, KSA Awareness Training Dev. Center Blockchain Technology May 19 Mumbai Min. of Micro, Small & Medium Ent. Blockchain Foundation Program Jan 22 Mumbai Kerala Blockchain Academy Ethereum Fundamentals Program Feb 22 Mumbai Kerala Blockchain Academy Hyperledger Fabric Fundamentals Program Feb 22 Mumbai Kerala Blockchain Academy Corda Fundamentals Program Mar 22 Mumbai Kerala Blockchain Academy