Bassam Hajjar
Riyadh,Saudi Arabia
Summary
Product Owner in Business technology with 6 years of experience in the Financial Services sector, specializing in high-value payment systems, clearing, and settlement infrastructures. Proven ability to lead requirements gathering, define product backlogs, and deliver complex, regulatory-critical projects for major financial institutions. Deep expertise in the end-to-end transaction lifecycle, with direct experience interfacing with central market infrastructures (SARIE, AFAQ, SWIFT) and ensuring compliance. Seeking to leverage domain knowledge and analytical skills to drive technology initiatives in the region.
Overview
8
8
years of professional experience
18
18
years of post-secondary education
1
1
Certification
Work history
Lead Solutions Engineer (Technical Product Owner)
eMcREY (Offshore) SAL
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
04.2024 - Current
- Acting as a de-facto Product Owner for a team of 5 engineers & business analysts, translating business needs for payment gateways into a prioritized development queue and ensuring alignment with client business objectives.
- Gathered and analyzed business requirements for payment gateway product, defining product integration points within client Banks for ensuring end-to-end international and local payment flow.
- Handling all change requests, new feature requests, production incidents/fixes and enhancements across several products in several clients Banks, while assigning tasks, priorities and implementation approaches with development & business analysts teams.
- Managed stakeholder expectations across several client banks, acting as the key liaison between business users, technical teams, and central payment system operators for Payment Hubs & Card Issuance products.
- Owned the product lifecycle for the SARIE IPS & GCC AFAQ product integration, from initial requirement gathering with bank stakeholders through to successful central bank certification and post-launch support
Senior Solutions Engineer/Solutions Engineer
eMcREY (Offshore) SAL
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
07.2019 - 04.2024
- Elicited and translated business requirements from key bank stakeholders into detailed functional specifications and technical user stories for a multi-scheme Payment Hub, covering Western Union and local payment systems..
- Owned the product backlog for the implementation and enhancement of the Payment Hub, prioritizing features based on business value, regulatory deadlines, and client strategic objectives.
- Played a lead role in the requirements analysis, UAT, and central bank certification for the SARIE Instant Payment System (IPS), a critical 24/7 market infrastructure. This involved meticulous analysis of the end-to-end transaction lifecycle from initiation to settlement.
- Spearheaded the integration of payment hub with the AFAQ GCC RTGS system, connecting Gulf region banks through a common network. Gained extensive experience in the post-trade settlement process for cross-border transactions.
- Conducted gap analysis and gathered requirements to replace a legacy Card Issuance system, configuring a new in-house solution to meet all business and operational needs.
- Designed and integrated an Open Banking API Management solution for a client bank, defining API specifications and data flows to comply with Bahrain's Open Banking initiative
IT Auditor (Internship)
Deloitte
12.2017 - 01.2018
- Completed a 1 month internship program at Deloitte as part of the IT Audit team.
Education
B.E. in Computer and Communications Engineering (CCE) -
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon 09.2015 - 06.2019
Lebanese Baccalaureate in Life Science -
Deutsche Schule Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon 09.2001 - 06.2015
Skills
- Requirements Elicitation & Analysis
- Product Backlog Management
- JIRA & Confluence
- Functional Specifications
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
- Change Request Management
- Release & Implementation Planning
- Production Support & Hyper-care
- Backlog Grooming & Prioritization
- Cross-functional Team Leadership
- User onboarding & training
- MT ISO Message Scheme (ISO15022)
- MX ISO Message Scheme (ISO20022)
- Java (Spring Framework, J-unit)
- SQL (Oracle/MSSQL)
- Web Server configuration/management (IBM Websphere, Tomcat)
- MQ Integration (IBM MQ)
- Eclipse, Visual Studio, Intellij
- Windows, Linux, Unix
- CI/CD (Jenkins)
- Container (Docker)
- Microsoft Office
Languages
Arabic
Native
English
Fluent
German
Intermediate (B1)
French
Elementary
Accomplishments
- Award of appreciation by Saudi Payments (Owner of the Local Instant Payment Scheme in Saudi arabia)
- Winner of Exceptional Computer Hardware Final year project & CME Award at AUB Senior year.
Certification
- Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 8 Programmer
Personal Details
Nationality: Lebanese
Date of birth: 08/08/1997
Timeline
Lead Solutions Engineer (Technical Product Owner)
eMcREY (Offshore) SAL
04.2024 - Current
Senior Solutions Engineer/Solutions Engineer
eMcREY (Offshore) SAL
07.2019 - 04.2024
IT Auditor (Internship)
Deloitte
12.2017 - 01.2018
B.E. in Computer and Communications Engineering (CCE) -
American University of Beirut
09.2015 - 06.2019
Lebanese Baccalaureate in Life Science -
Deutsche Schule Beirut
09.2001 - 06.2015