Sr. Analyst

About the Role

Visa (KSA) is seeking a Sr. Analyst to join the Acceptance Solutions team, part of the Value-Added Services (VAS) organization. This full-time position is based in Riyadh and is responsible for leading Visa's acceptance localization strategy and execution across the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) region.

Role Context and Objectives

The successful candidate will drive the identification, prioritization, and delivery of localization requirements to support domestic payment schemes, national payment infrastructure initiatives, local routing mandates, regulatory requirements, and market-specific acceptance needs. This role serves as the CEMEA subject matter expert for card-present acceptance localization, involving close collaboration with various stakeholders to ensure Visa's in-person acceptance capabilities support local market requirements and evolving payment ecosystem needs. Extensive partnership with Global Product, Core Processing, Network, Technology, Government Engagement, Legal, Risk, and Compliance teams will be required to assess market requirements and drive the delivery of localization initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for in-person acceptance localization across CEMEA, covering merchant acquiring, acceptance infrastructure, card-present payments, domestic payment schemes, and local routing initiatives.
• Lead Visa's regional strategy for localization of in-person acceptance capabilities to address regulatory requirements, domestic payment scheme mandates, and national payment infrastructure initiatives.
• Analyze and translate regulatory, market, and domestic scheme requirements into clearly documented business, operational, and technical requirements.
• Partner with regulators, central banks, national payment companies, and government stakeholders to understand evolving payment ecosystem requirements and represent Visa's acceptance capabilities.
• Collaborate with Global Product, Technology, Acceptance Solutions, and Core Processing teams to build business cases, prioritize market requirements, and drive product roadmap enhancements.
• Drive end-to-end execution of localization initiatives including requirements gathering, impact assessments, stakeholder alignment, business case development, delivery tracking, testing, certification support, and market readiness activities.
• Support domestic payment scheme enablement initiatives, including co-badging programs, local routing, domestic acceptance mandates, and national payment infrastructure projects.
• Engage with acquirers, processors, payment service providers (PSPs), payment facilitators, terminal vendors, merchants, fintechs, and ecosystem participants to understand implementation challenges and support deployment readiness.
• Develop market assessments, strategy recommendations, and executive-level updates to support regional and global decision-making.
• Represent Visa at industry forums, regulatory discussions, market working groups, and client engagements related to payment acceptance, domestic schemes, and localization initiatives.

Qualifications and Experience

• 5-10 years of experience in merchant acquiring, payment acceptance, payment processing, domestic payment schemes, regulatory programs, or in-person payments product management.
• Demonstrated ability to assess market and regulatory requirements and translate them into actionable business and technical specifications.
• Experience in developing regional localization strategies and driving their successful deployment.
• Strong collaboration skills to work effectively with internal and external stakeholders.

Work Conditions

This role is part of the hub team covering the CEMEA region and reports to the Acceptance Solutions Lead within the VAS organization. Visa requires at least 3 days in the office; specific expectations will be confirmed by the Hiring Manager.