Manages the activities and strategic direction of multiple departments including indirectly managing several unique types of Engineering and/or Architecture teams. Responsible for the budget of multiple cost centers spanning concurrent development streams. Provides long and short-term strategic direction for the Division with collaboration from Engineering and/or Architecture and Technology senior management team. Serves as primary contact to Divisional peers, Management Group, Bank-wide senior management and business partners. Serves as technology leader and industry expert in assigned domains.
Reporting to the Divisional CIO for Wealth, Institutional Services, Core Banking, Operations Technology, and Payments, the Head of Payments Technology & Transformation will lead the strategy, architecture, engineering, and modernization efforts supporting M&T Bank's payments ecosystem. This executive will be responsible for enabling how money moves across the bank, driving transformation across payment rails, platforms, and engineering capabilities while ensuring resiliency, security, and regulatory compliance.
This role provides end-to-end technology leadership across Wire, ACH, SWIFT, ISO 20022, RTP, FedNow, Digital Assets, Treasury Services, and emerging payment technologies. The leader will oversee critical modernization initiatives including wire transformation, payments hub implementation, cloud adoption, and AI-enabled engineering practices that accelerate delivery while maintaining operational excellence.
Build Technology divisional strategy across departments with peers and Technology senior management leaders. Work with senior management outside Technology to build positive client relationships to support delivery of complex Technology projects and activities.
Define and execute the end-to-end payments technology strategy, investment roadmap, target architecture, and build-buy-partner decisions aligned to enterprise goals and client outcomes.
Lead the modernization of platforms supporting Wire, ACH, SWIFT, ISO 20022, RTP, FedNow, Digital Assets, and emerging payment capabilities.
Partner with Payments, Treasury Management, Operations, Product, and Business leaders to translate strategic priorities into an integrated technology and delivery roadmap.
Manage multiple Technology departments and responsible for all financial, compliance, human resources, and risk operations within the organization. Monitor industry trends, payment ecosystem developments, and emerging technologies to ensure the Bank remains competitive and future-ready.
Simplify the application portfolio, retire legacy platforms, and advance cloud-enabled, API-driven, platform engineering, and event-driven architectures.
Strengthen engineering excellence through adoption of AI-driven engineering practices, DevSecOps, automation, observability, modern testing frameworks, and continuous delivery capabilities.
Apply AI, data, and intelligent automation solutions to improve engineering productivity, operational efficiency, risk management, and client experiences.
Manage strategic relationships with technology vendors, payment network providers, and professional organizations to remain current on industry trends and best practices.
Oversee systems development activities of assigned teams, including assignment of staff to various projects and ensuring timely completion within budget.
Ensure payment platforms meet demanding expectations for availability, resiliency, scalability, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, controls, operational risk management, and regulatory compliance.
Oversee the implementation of technology consistent with Division standards and long-range plans, seeking opportunities to leverage capabilities across the enterprise.
Exercise usual authority of a manager concerning staffing, performance appraisals, promotions, salary recommendations, performance management, succession planning, leadership development, and terminations.
Serve as a trusted advisor to senior business and technology leaders regarding payments strategy, transformation priorities, technology investments, risks, and trade-off decisions.
Understand and adhere to the Company's risk and regulatory standards, policies, and controls in accordance with the Company's Risk Appetite. Design, implement, maintain, and enhance internal controls to mitigate risk on an ongoing basis.
Promote an environment that supports belonging, innovation, collaboration, accountability, and reflects the M&T Bank brand.
Maintain M&T internal control standards, including timely implementation of internal and external audit points together with any issues raised by regulators, payment networks, and examiners.
Complete other related duties as assigned.
Oversees a large technology organization consisting primarily of engineers, architects, engineering managers, senior managers, and delivery leaders responsible for mission-critical payment platforms and transformation initiatives.
Provides strategic oversight of technology investments, architecture decisions, modernization programs, vendor relationships, and engineering execution supporting enterprise payment capabilities.
Responsible for balancing innovation and transformation with operational resiliency, regulatory compliance, and risk management expectations.
50 to 100+
This is a rare opportunity to lead one of the Bank's most strategically important technology portfolios. The Head of Payments Technology & Transformation will influence enterprise strategy, drive modernization across critical payment systems, and shape the future of how M&T delivers secure, resilient, and innovative payment capabilities to clients, businesses, and communities. The role offers broad exposure across product, operations, risk, architecture, engineering, and executive leadership while creating a lasting impact on the Bank's digital transformation journey.
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M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $201,200.00 - $335,300.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.
Buffalo, New York, United States of America
Great companies have an enduring sense of purpose. At M&T, our purpose is a simple one: make a difference in people’s lives and uplift the communities we serve. Founded in 1856 in Buffalo, NY we are now a top 11 full-service US-based commercial bank with a retail footprint across the east coast and wealth services available nationwide and abroad. As a bank, we offer advice, guidance, expertise, and solutions across the entire financial spectrum that combines M&T’s traditional banking services with the wealth management and institutional capabilities offered by Wilmington Trust. We are a community-minded organization with more than 167 years of experience. We serve customers, community, and colleagues whether they be across the street, across the state or across the country.
As an employer of choice, we are proud to offer competitive benefits ranging from medical and retirement to forty hours of paid volunteer time, each year. Our core values drive the work we do – integrity, ownership, collaboration, curiosity, candor and we seek to further build upon our record of success by bringing in top talent and fresh skill sets while continuing to support the growth and development of all our team members.
M&T Bank is unwavering when it comes to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, age, disability, citizenship, pregnancy, veteran status, military status, marital status, sexual orientation, genetic information or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local laws.
