UK

United Kingdom · Finance roles · 8-12 years

VP of Payments & Card Services

Here is the whole job, in plain words. What it is, a real day, what you decide, how you're judged, how people get here and where they go next. Then the part no course gives you: twelve AI tutors who learn your work.

  • Experience band8-12 years
  • Reports toChief Operating Officer (COO)
  • UK framework levelUsually a manager, or the deepest specialist in a team

Also advertised as Chief Card Operations Officer · Head of Payments & Lending Operations · Executive Director, Credit Card Services

Built on an analysis of 43,079 real UK job descriptions · grounded in qualifications employers recognise

Start with a free Future Fluency check, tuned to VP of Payments & Card Services

Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this role rather than a generic one. About five minutes, and no card.

Start the check, free

1What this role really is

This isn't just a job; it's about owning the entire credit card and payments ecosystem for our organisation. You'll be the one shaping our strategy, making the big calls on technology investments, and ensuring we're not just compliant but leading the market. Frankly, you're responsible for a significant chunk of our revenue and our customer experience. It's a high-stakes role, but the impact is immense.

2What you'd actually use

The tools this job runs on, and how well you'd need to know each one.

Core Processing Platform (e.g., Fiserv FirstVision, TSYS TS2, FIS)Strategic

Managing vendor relationships, defining requirements for new product configurations, overseeing platform-level changes or migrations, and understanding the strategic capabilities and limitations of the core system.

Dispute Management Systems (e.g., Verifi, Ethoca, Visa VROL)Architect

Setting the overall dispute management strategy, evaluating and implementing new tools (e.g., pre-dispute resolution), and reporting on the financial impact of disputes to executive leadership and the board.

Fraud Detection Engines (e.g., FICO Falcon, SAS Fraud Mgmt, Accertify)Strategic

Owning the fraud technology roadmap, building business cases for new prevention tools, and balancing fraud loss rates against customer friction (false positives) at an enterprise level.

CRM / Servicing Platforms (e.g., Salesforce Service Cloud, Pega)Architect

Designing and optimising end-to-end customer servicing workflows, integrating CRM with other platforms, and using CRM data to drive strategic decisions about customer experience and operational efficiency.

Data & Reporting (SQL, Power BI, Tableau, advanced analytics platforms)Strategic

Defining the data and analytics strategy for the entire operations function. Using data to forecast volumes, model staffing needs, present business cases, and provide insights for board-level reporting.

3What you get to decide, and how that grows

Power in a job isn't your title. It's what you're allowed to decide. Here's how it grows as you move up.

The choiceComing inWhere you are nowThe step above
Strategic Direction for Payments & Card ServicesNo involvement.No involvement.Contributes insights and data to support strategic discussions.
P&L Ownership & Budget Allocation (Payments & Card Services)No involvement.No involvement.Manages project budgets up to £5K.
Major Technology Platform Selection/MigrationNo involvement.No involvement.Provides technical input on system requirements.

4How you'll be judged

The scoreboard, honestly: the hard targets, how often each one is actually looked at, and the quiet human signals that never make it onto a dashboard.

Business Unit P&L Performance
Overall profitability of the Payments & Card Services business unit.
Target · Achieve 10-15% YoY profit growth, exceeding board-approved targets.

Delivering a £12M profit for the business unit in Q2, exceeding the £10.5M target by 14%.

Net Fraud Loss Rate
The percentage of total transaction volume lost to fraud after all recovery efforts.
Target · Maintain below 0.05% of total transaction volume, or reduce by 10% YoY.

Achieving a net fraud loss rate of 0.048% against a £500M monthly transaction volume, saving £100K compared to the 0.05% target.

Market Share Growth (Card Products)
Increase in our share of the UK credit card market by active accounts or balances.
Target · Increase market share by 0.5-1.0 percentage points annually.

Growing our market share from 4.2% to 4.8% over the last 12 months, adding significant new customer acquisition.

Major Regulatory Incident Rate
Number of significant regulatory breaches or fines related to card operations.
Target · Zero significant incidents or fines.

Successfully navigating a complex FCA audit without any findings of material non-compliance, avoiding potential fines of £1M+.

Strategic Initiative ROI
Return on Investment for major technology upgrades or new product launches within the payments domain.
Target · Achieve 15-20% ROI within 24 months of launch for key programmes.

Successfully launching our new digital wallet integration, delivering a 17% ROI through increased transaction volume and reduced processing costs.

Board & Investor Confidence
Perception of the Payments & Card Services strategy and execution by the Board and external investors.
  • Positive feedback from Board members during presentations, investor calls, and one-on-one meetings. Proactive engagement from investors seeking your insights on market trends. Your ability to clearly articulate strategy and risk to non-technical audiences.
Organisational Leadership & Culture
Your ability to foster a high-performing, compliant, and innovative culture across the entire payments organisation.
  • High employee engagement scores (especially in your direct and indirect teams), low attrition of key talent, successful succession planning for critical roles, and a demonstrable culture of continuous improvement and ethical behaviour. People actually want to work for your organisation.
Strategic Partnership Development
Establishing and nurturing key relationships with payment networks, regulators, and strategic vendors.
  • Being invited to speak at industry events, securing favourable terms with network partners, proactive engagement with regulatory bodies to shape future policy, and vendors actively seeking your input on their product roadmaps.
Innovation & Market Responsiveness
The business unit's ability to adapt to market changes, adopt new technologies, and launch competitive products.
  • Successful launch of new payment features ahead of competitors, positive industry analyst reports on our payment offerings, and internal feedback indicating a proactive approach to market shifts rather than a reactive one. You're setting trends, not just following them.

5Would you like it

The honest version. What people enjoy, and what grinds them down.

What people enjoy
Driving Enterprise-Level Impact

You'll be making decisions that directly affect millions of customers and hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue. Seeing your strategic initiatives transform the business and deliver tangible results is what gets you up in the morning.

Successfully launching a new card product that captures significant market share and contributes £20M to the P&L in its first year.

Navigating Complexity & Risk

The payments world is a minefield of regulatory changes, fraud threats, and technological shifts. You thrive on the challenge of making sense of this complexity, anticipating problems, and building robust, compliant solutions that protect the organisation.

Leading the organisation through a major regulatory change (e.g., PSD2 implementation) without a single breach or fine, turning it into a competitive advantage.

Building & Leading High-Performing Teams

You'll be responsible for a large organisation, developing leaders, fostering a strong culture, and seeing your teams excel. Your legacy will be the talent you've nurtured and the capabilities you've built.

Developing a clear succession plan for your direct reports, resulting in two Directors being promoted to VP roles within three years.

What frustrates people
  • Navigating internal politics and securing buy-in for major, costly initiatives.
  • Dealing with legacy technology constraints that slow down innovation.
  • Balancing aggressive growth targets with increasingly stringent regulatory demands.
  • The constant threat of sophisticated fraud attacks and the need for continuous investment in defence.
  • Managing external vendor relationships where you're reliant on their performance for critical services.
  • The sheer volume of information you need to absorb and synthesise daily, across multiple domains.
What this role does not give you
  • A predictable 9-to-5 schedule (expect late nights, early mornings, and weekend calls).
  • The luxury of working on one project at a time; you'll be juggling multiple, high-priority initiatives.
  • A quiet, heads-down analytical role; this is about people, strategy, and influence.
  • Immediate gratification for every decision; many strategic moves take years to fully mature.

6Who you work with

This role directly shapes the strategic direction and financial performance of our entire credit card and payments business unit. You'll be making decisions that influence market share, customer loyalty, regulatory standing, and ultimately, our shareholder value. Your choices impact hundreds of employees, millions of customers, and our standing in the broader financial services market.

Inside the business
  • CEO and Executive Leadership Team
  • Chief Risk Officer
  • Chief Technology Officer
  • Chief Marketing Officer
  • Chief Financial Officer
  • Board of Directors (especially Audit & Risk Committees)
Outside the business
  • Payment Network Executives (Visa, Mastercard)
  • Regulatory Bodies (FCA, PRA)
  • Key Technology Vendors (Fiserv, TSYS, FIS)
  • Industry Associations
  • Investors and Analysts

7What you need before you start

Not a wish list. The things you would be expected to already have.

  • A proven track record of 15+ years in senior leadership roles within payments, credit cards, or retail banking operations.
  • Demonstrable experience managing a significant P&L (minimum £10M+) and driving business unit growth.
  • Extensive experience leading large, multi-functional teams (100+ employees, including managers and directors).
  • Deep expertise in navigating complex regulatory environments and engaging with financial regulators.
  • A history of successfully driving large-scale technology transformations or new product launches in a regulated industry.
  • Experience presenting to and influencing at Board level, including Audit and Risk Committees.

8What to practise next

Where the job is going, and what to do about it starting this week.

Quantum-Resistant Cryptography & Cybersecurity Strategy

The advent of quantum computing poses a long-term, existential threat to current cryptographic standards, which underpin all payment security. As VP, you'll need to start planning and investing in quantum-resistant solutions to protect our customers and assets for the next decade. This is a multi-year, multi-million-pound strategic imperative.

Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) · Cryptographic Agility · Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) · Supply Chain Security

  • This quarter: Schedule a briefing with your CISO on the quantum threat and our current defence posture.
  • Next 6 months: Allocate budget for initial research and pilot projects in PQC.
  • Next 12 months: Develop a 5-year roadmap for cryptographic migration and quantum readiness.
  • Ongoing: Engage with industry forums and government bodies on PQC standards and adoption.

Quick win: Ensure your CISO is actively tracking NIST's PQC standardisation process. Ask for a high-level assessment of our most vulnerable systems to quantum attacks.

9Staying current once you are in

What people here do to keep up
  • Active participation in industry bodies and associations (e.g., UK Finance, Payments Association) at a leadership level.
  • Regular attendance and speaking engagements at major payments and financial services conferences (e.g., Money20/20, Sibos).
  • Executive coaching focused on strategic leadership, board engagement, and organisational transformation.
  • Mentoring emerging leaders within the financial services sector.
  • Continuous learning on emerging technologies (AI, DLT, quantum computing) and their strategic implications for payments.

10How the AI economy is changing work like this

Before we ask anything of you, here's what we can already say about AI and work of this kind:

The new skill this role is being asked for: AI Governance & Ethical Frameworks

AI is becoming embedded in every aspect of payments, from fraud detection to customer service. As a leader, you'll need to establish robust governance frameworks, address ethical considerations (bias, fairness), and ensure regulatory compliance for AI models. This isn't just a technical problem; it's a strategic and reputational one.

We'll only ever tell you what we can actually back up. No hype, no scare tactics.

Your PlanIllustration

Built for VP of Payments & Card Services

3 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.

  1. Processing complex requests for payment against life, pensions and investment contractsSkillsfirst Awards Ltd · covers 3 of 3 standardsLevel 3
  2. Operating credit control proceduresPearson EDI · covers 1 of 3 standardsLevel 4
  3. Cash CollectionsChartered Institute of Credit Management · covers 1 of 3 standardsLevel 3
These are the real units behind this job, in the order they rank for it. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

The rising capability

Zavmo analysis

What's rising in its place

This is where the work is heading, and the higher pay with it. Get fluent here and the shift stops being a threat and starts being your edge.

AI Governance & Ethical Frameworks

AI is becoming embedded in every aspect of payments, from fraud detection to customer service. As a leader, you'll need to establish robust governance frameworks, address ethical considerations (bias, fairness), and ensure regulatory compliance for AI models. This isn't just a technical problem; it's a strategic and reputational one.

  • AI Explainability (XAI)
  • AI Risk Management
  • Regulatory Sandboxes for AI
  • Responsible AI Principles

Ecosystem Orchestration & Partnership Strategy

Payments are increasingly about interconnected ecosystems, not just standalone products. You'll need to identify, negotiate, and manage strategic partnerships with fintechs, big tech players, and other financial institutions to expand our reach and offerings. This is about building a network, not just a product.

  • Platform Business Models
  • API Economy
  • Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances
  • Open Banking & Embedded Finance

What you’ll use

Skills this role draws on

Technical

  • Payment Ecosystem Mastery
  • Advanced Fraud & Risk Strategy
  • Large-Scale Operational Transformation
  • Data & Analytics for Strategic Decision-Making

The pathway

How you actually get there, here

How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.

  1. 1

    Director of Card Operations / Head of Payments

    5-10 years

    Skills to master

    • Managing multi-functional teams, owning significant P&L segments, driving large-scale operational transformations, engaging with executive leadership, and deep regulatory knowledge.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Consistently exceeding financial targets for their business area.
    • Successful delivery of multiple complex strategic programmes.
    • Strong track record of developing and promoting talent within their teams.
    • Recognised as a thought leader within their domain, both internally and externally.
  2. 2

    Chief Risk Officer (CRO) / Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) (from a payments background)

    7-12 years

    Skills to master

    • Enterprise-wide risk management, deep regulatory interpretation, board-level risk reporting, crisis management, and building robust compliance frameworks across diverse financial products.

    You're ready to move on when

    • A comprehensive understanding of all risk domains (credit, operational, market, reputational).
    • Proven ability to influence and challenge executive decisions from a risk perspective.
    • Successful navigation of complex regulatory audits or investigations.
    • Strong ethical leadership and an unwavering commitment to integrity.
  3. 3

    Head of Product (Cards & Payments)

    5-10 years

    Skills to master

    • Product strategy and roadmap development, market analysis, customer segmentation, go-to-market execution, and lifecycle management for complex financial products. You'd need to shift from an operational focus to a market-facing product one.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Demonstrable success in launching and scaling new card or payment products.
    • A deep understanding of customer needs and market opportunities.
    • Strong collaboration with technology, marketing, and sales teams.
    • Ability to articulate a clear product vision and secure investment.

11Where this role leads

The long view:This role is a capstone for a career dedicated to financial services. It offers immense opportunity for impact, personal growth, and shaping the future of payments. We're looking for someone who sees this not just as a job, but as a chance to leave a lasting legacy on our organisation and the industry.

Pay & demand

Pay and demand for this role will appear here, each figure traced to a named authoritative source (e.g. the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, under the Open Government Licence). We don’t show numbers we can’t attribute.

The ten Future Fluencies

Zavmo analysis

The credential is what you can do today. These are what keep you valuable.

A qualification proves you can do the job as it's defined today. These ten are what decide whether you're still the obvious person for it in five years. They're the capabilities employers are now writing into senior roles faster than people are learning them. Zavmo weaves them through whatever you study, so you come out with both: the credential and the fluency.

The highlighted ones are the Fluencies your role leans on hardest, from how VP of Payments & Card Services is actually changing. In about two minutes, the free confidence check asks where you stand on each of the ten. That's the whole check, and it's what makes the plan yours rather than generic.

Where it leads

Roles this leads to

Also named as a next step, with no page in the catalogue yet:

  • Chief Executive Officer (CEO) / President of a Business Unit

12The team that's yours

No two people are taught the same way. This is one-to-one, not one-to-many.

Zavmo is a hyper-personalised AI learning platform. Twelve virtual tutors, each with a different way of teaching, and one orchestration agent that picks the right one for the moment. So every single lesson is shaped around you, your role, and the way you learn. Not a course everyone sits through. A conversation built for you, and no one else.

…and nine more, matched to you after your first chat. Meet all twelve

Start free and meet yours

13What it feels like

A conversation, not a course

Because your tutor knows your role, your projects and your last session, learning sounds like this. And it's different for every single person:

Processing complex requests for payment against life, pensions and investment contractsLevel 3

Applied to your work in VP of Payments & Card Services

By completing this unit, learners will be able to understand roles and responsibilities, product features, and the payment request process for life assurance, pension, and investment products, enabling them to process complex payment requests.

How the thinking builds
  1. Remember
  2. Understand
  3. Apply
  4. Analyse
  5. Evaluate
  6. Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.

One to one, not one to many

No two people run this the same way

A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.

  1. Your actual work Every lesson is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
  2. What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
  3. The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
  4. How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
  5. Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.

See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.

DemonstrateIllustration

Evidenced on your work in VP of Payments & Card Services

You do not finish by watching something. You finish by showing it on the work you already do, against the measures this job is judged on.

  • Business Unit P&L PerformanceOverall profitability of the Payments & Card Services business unit.Delivering a £12M profit for the business unit in Q2, exceeding the £10.5M target by 14%.Achieve 10-15% YoY profit growth, exceeding board-approved targets.
  • Net Fraud Loss RateThe percentage of total transaction volume lost to fraud after all recovery efforts.Achieving a net fraud loss rate of 0.048% against a £500M monthly transaction volume, saving £100K compared to the 0.05% target.Maintain below 0.05% of total transaction volume, or reduce by 10% YoY.
  • Market Share Growth (Card Products)Increase in our share of the UK credit card market by active accounts or balances.Growing our market share from 4.2% to 4.8% over the last 12 months, adding significant new customer acquisition.Increase market share by 0.5-1.0 percentage points annually.
  • Major Regulatory Incident RateNumber of significant regulatory breaches or fines related to card operations.Successfully navigating a complex FCA audit without any findings of material non-compliance, avoiding potential fines of £1M+.Zero significant incidents or fines.

and 1 more in the full scoreboard below.

These are this job's own measures, with its own targets. Nothing is marked evidenced, because nobody has started this yet. Yours would fill in from the work you bring.

Your passport

This isn't a certificate you file away. It's a passport to the life you're designing.

Every credit you earn and every fluency you build adds up: evidence where it counts, carried with you. Zavmo keeps the map: where you are, where you're heading, and the next step, at your pace, around your life. From VP of Payments & Card Services to Chief Operating Officer (COO), and whatever you decide comes after.

Level 5 · in progressAI Fluency→ Chief Operating Officer (COO)→ your design
Where this takes you

This role is a capstone for a career dedicated to financial services. It offers immense opportunity for impact, personal growth, and shaping the future of payments. We're looking for someone who sees this not just as a job, but as a chance to leave a lasting legacy on our organisation and the industry.

See Your Progress GrowIllustration
VP of Payments & Card Services
  • Payment Ecosystem Mastery
  • Advanced Fraud & Risk Strategy
  • Large-Scale Operational Transformation
  • Data & Analytics for Strategic Decision-Making
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

14The detail, folded away

Everything else the record holds

The career branches in full, how AI is already showing up in the day-to-day, and the questions people ask about this job. Here when you want them, out of the way while you decide.

Where it leads next, rung by rung

Where it leads

The career path, and where it branches

VP of Payments & Card Services is a start, not a ceiling. Each step below asks for new skills and hands back more autonomy.

  1. Chief Operating Officer (COO)

    3-5 years

    Enterprise-wide strategic leadership

    • Supply chain management (if applicable to broader operations).
    • Advanced organisational design and change management.
    • Enterprise technology strategy beyond payments.
    • Managing diverse operational risks across all business lines.

  2. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) / President of a Business Unit

    5-10 years

    Full enterprise accountability, investor relations, board governance

    • M&A strategy and execution.
    • Corporate finance and capital structure optimisation.
    • Public relations and brand management.
    • Global market expansion strategies.
Working with AI on the job

Working with AI

Where AI is starting to help

Even at the C-suite level, AI isn't just for the analysts. It's a powerful co-pilot that can dramatically enhance your strategic decision-making, market intelligence, and executive communication. Imagine having a personal research assistant that never sleeps, constantly sifting through data to give you the edge.

For a VP of Payments & Card Services, AI can transform how you monitor market trends, assess competitive landscapes, and even draft complex board reports. It's about augmenting your executive judgment, not replacing it. You'll use AI to cut through the noise, focus on what truly matters, and make more informed, faster decisions.

Market & Competitive Intelligence AI

Use advanced AI platforms to continuously scan industry news, regulatory updates, competitor announcements, and analyst reports. Get AI-generated summaries of key trends, emerging threats, and new opportunities in the payments space, tailored to your strategic priorities. This means less time reading, more time acting.

Regulatory Impact Analysis

Feed new regulatory proposals (e.g., from the FCA or PRA) into an LLM to quickly assess their potential impact on our operations, technology, and P&L. Get a summarised risk assessment and proposed mitigation strategies in minutes, allowing you to engage with legal and compliance teams more effectively.

Strategic Scenario Modelling

Work with AI-powered modelling tools to quickly run 'what-if' scenarios for new product launches, market expansions, or risk events. Understand the potential financial outcomes, operational impacts, and resource requirements for different strategic choices, informing your executive decisions.

Executive Communication & Board Report Drafting

Use AI to draft initial versions of complex board reports, investor updates, or strategic presentations. Provide key data points and talking points, and let the AI structure the narrative, ensuring clarity, conciseness, and a professional tone. You'll then refine and add your executive insights.

Common questions

Common questions

How do you become a VP of Payments & Card Services?

Common routes in include Director of Card Operations / Head of Payments (5-10 years), Chief Risk Officer (CRO) / Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) (from a payments background) (7-12 years) and Head of Product (Cards & Payments) (5-10 years). Times vary with prior experience.

Where can a VP of Payments & Card Services progress to?

This role can lead on to Chief Operating Officer (COO) (3-5 years) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) / President of a Business Unit (5-10 years), depending on the skills you build.

What level is a VP of Payments & Card Services in the UK?

This role aligns to RQF Level 5 on the UK framework, a guide to the depth of qualification it maps to, not a hard entry bar.

What new skills matter most for a VP of Payments & Card Services?

Increasingly, AI Governance & Ethical Frameworks and Ecosystem Orchestration & Partnership Strategy. These are the areas where the higher-paid, future-proof work is heading.

The honest bit

You’ve started things before

Most of them were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.

There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.

And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.

What it costs

Less than one coaching session. Every month.

A single career-coaching hour costs more than a month of this, and it ends when the hour does. Zavmo doesn't. It's £70 a month, about £2.30 a day, for a companion that knows VP of Payments & Card Services, works on the job you actually do, and keeps going at your pace rather than a timetable's.

  • Searching and planning stay free. You only pay when you start learning.
  • Your credits are yours. Regulated, and they don't vanish when a subscription ends.
  • Cancel any time and billing stops. No notice period, no minimum term.

Your path, personalised

You have the map. Walking it is the part we do together.

This route runs to 3 national skill standards. That is a real journey.

Zavmo shapes a learning experience as unique as you are. It fits how you learn, your pace and the work you already do. Every step stays benchmarked to recognised national standards. That’s the plan for becoming a VP of Payments & Card Services: personal to you, and it still counts. The first steps are free.

Independent research finds well-designed intelligent tutoring performs nearly as well as one-to-one human tutoring: VanLehn (2011), Educational Psychologist.

A private tutor in the UK averages £35–40 an hour . Zavmo is £70/month.

A real plan on learn.zavmo.ai: Ofqual-regulated units, credits, and a three-month run at your own pace.
Start free No commitment. See your first steps free.

15Where to go from here

Other roles at Level 5

Same depth of qualification, different job. Useful if the work appeals but this particular role does not.

Other roles in Finance roles

Stay in the field you know and move sideways rather than up.

If you leave this industry

Your experience as a VP of Payments & Card Services is highly transferable across the broader financial services sector, including retail banking, investment banking (for payment infrastructure), fintech startups, and even regulatory bodies. The strategic, operational, and risk management skills are universally valued at this level.

Not sure this is the right direction?

Work out what you actually want from work first, then come back and see which roles fit it. Takes about ten minutes.

This role profile is © 2026Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.

You're not behind. You're right on time. The shift is only just beginning. Your role won't look the same in two years. Be the one who leads the change, not the one it happens to. Build my plan, free Here's the first ten minutes: a 2-minute confidence check → your personalised roadmap → meet the tutors matched to you. No card, cancel any time. No card. Build your plan, see your roadmap and meet the twelve tutors matched to you. All free. When you're ready to start learning, it's £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.