Wholesale Payments Specialist, Senior

Company

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) delivers a suite of payments services to financial institutions via FedLine® Solutions, Fedwire® Funds and Securities, the National Settlement Service (NSS), FedCash®1, FedACH®, Check Services, and the FedNow® Service. FRFS operates as a fully integrated organization with groups dedicated to customer experience, operations, technology, product and customer/industry management, enterprise services, payments system improvement, and one focused on the ongoing growth and development of the FedNow instant payment service. Our strategy defines our future direction, seeking to offer a fully integrated product suite that provides speed, resilience, and choice in meeting the payments needs of FRFS customers across the United States. Through our Enterprise structure, we strive to meet the needs of the marketplace for new products and services with speed and agility, seek to provide a robust and unified customer experience, and work to create career growth opportunities for FRFS staff.

The FRFS Enterprise operates with a customer-first mindset, comprised of team members seeking to do the best work of their careers in pursuit of our important central bank mission.

This position is responsible for business application configuration, setup, maintenance, testing, analysis and troubleshooting in support of a comprehensive suite of FRFS products, including Fedwire Funds and Securities. The Sr. Systems Configuration Analyst demonstrates advanced understanding of business application systems supporting multiple Federal Reserve’s financial services offerings, the setup of routine to complex processing and accounting relationships for thousands of financial institutions within these systems in order to properly process and settle financial transactions, provides complex operational and technical support, and is a primary resource for troubleshooting or solving complex application and operational problems. Successful execution of duties requires obtaining and authenticating financial institution documentation; impact analysis and manipulation of business applications to establish, close, or merge financial institution accounting and settlement accounts and relationships; engage, educate and consult with financial institution accounting, business systems and technical resources to analyze business application configuration and setup, assess impact and ensure proper financial transaction processing and settlement ; and collaborate and coordinate with various internal (FRS) system groups and partners that support interfacing business application systems.

Key Activities:

• •Independently coordinates and performs business application configuration, setup, maintenance, testing, analysis and troubleshooting in various Federal Reserve systems which may include: accounting and settlement agreements, correspondent/respondent relationship agreements, mergers, retired and failed financial institutions for Fedwire Funds and Securities payment services. This involves performing due diligence, business application systems research and analysis, processing, accounting and settlement configuration and testing, internal and external stakeholder follow-up, hosting conference calls to analyze, complete, verify and confirm requested application and accounting system configuration changes in all applicable systems. Serves as a primary point of contact for the customer and internal stakeholders, addressing inquiries and providing timely support throughout the process. Collaborates with customers to understand their requirements and objectives. May serve as lead on special projects or assignments that require advanced analytical and/or project management skills and technical acumen. Must be able to meet established service level agreements and quality measures.
• •Responds to Depository Institution (DI) cyber incidents. Serves as the subject matter expert (SME) and is responsible for providing important details regarding the financial institution processing and settlement relationship configuration and executing any necessary actions to disable/restore services as instructed if necessary. These incidents can occur at any hour on any day. Due to the critical nature of these events, the specialist may be called upon outside of normal business hours to respond.
• •Troubleshoots to resolve complex issues related to customer setup. This includes researching and documenting the issue, evaluating the severity, determining, and facilitating corrective action, and understanding if escalation to a lead or management is necessary. Troubleshoots to resolve connectivity issues, file formatting issues, and setup. Collaborates with internal stakeholders to troubleshoot and resolve issues.
• •Provides coaching and guidance to less experienced staff. Administers cross-training, which includes developing training plans and materials. Provides consultation and/or training to other internal stakeholders as needed to support customers.
• •Participates in or leads various projects or workgroups to collaborate on improvement initiatives. This includes providing support and assistance with hosting meetings, developing agendas, creating presentations, documenting business requirements, complying with procedures and processes, and conducting user acceptance testing as needed. This also includes maintaining department procedures to ensure they are updated as processes change and new automation or tools are tested and implemented.
• •Assists with the coordination and provides technical guidance and support for critical testing activities, such as Business Continuity, Protracted Outage Industry Testing, Operational Readiness, Contingency, operational or application conversions/enhancements, etc. This includes phone support for customers during the test, performing system updates in the test environment for customer profiles, obtaining attestations from customers, escalating customer and technical issues, etc. Serves as the intermediary between customers and other internal stakeholders to report issues, provide status updates, etc.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent Experience
• Five to Eight years preferred

Knowledge Areas:

• •Advanced Customer Service skills
• •Operational efficiencies and improvements
• •Advanced knowledge of Business process and procedures
• •Business application systems configuration, testing and analysis
• •Excellent Multi-tasking and Communications (written and verbal) Skills
• •Excellent Organizational skills and attention to detail with a proactive approach to problem solving

Technical Skills:

• •Intermediate to Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office Applications
• •Strong technical aptitude for innovation and continuous development to learn, test, and implement new tools, technologies, and methodologies
• •Research and analysis capabilities of a complex nature
• •Application of risk management policies and practices
• •Intermediate to Advanced in Payments operations and business application systems, e.g. Local Customer Directory
• •(LCD) for Funds and Securities, Account Management Information Systems (AMI), FedLine, FedPayments Manager
• •(FPM)
• •Intermediate to Advanced in Payment Services (e.g. Fedwire Funds and Securities, FedNow)
• •Project management skills and ability to manage projects effectively

Additional Details:

Individual Competencies

• •Demonstrates Self-Awareness
• •Collaborates
• •Problem Solving
• •Communicates Effectively
• •Action-Oriented

Locations:

The selected candidate will reside within a reasonable commuting distance defined by the employing Reserve Bank and will work full-time onsite.

Eligible Locations for Hire: Boston, MA- New York, NY- Richmond, VA- Atlanta, GA- Kansas City, MO

The Federal Reserve believes in salary transparency. The final salary and offer will be determined by the applicant’s background, skills, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Whether you’re de