Open Banking Strategy Consultant

Job Description

Alleviate Financial Solutions is seeking a senior Open Banking Strategy Consultant / Payments Architect to help shape and lead a strategic open banking and pay-by-bank initiative for a client operating within the payments processing ecosystem. This is a high-visibility advisory engagement working directly with executive leadership, including the CEO, to evaluate open banking platforms, define go-to-market strategy, guide partner selection, and help modernize payment infrastructure supporting large-scale transaction environments. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise across open banking ecosystems, ACH/pay-by-bank models, merchant payments economics, payment orchestration, and consumer enrollment strategies — particularly within high-volume, low-margin merchant verticals such as fuel retail, convenience, grocery, or travel centers. This is not a pure engineering or compliance role. We are specifically seeking a commercially minded payments strategist who can bridge product strategy, payments infrastructure, operational execution, and executive stakeholder engagement. Key Responsibilities: Open Banking Partner Discovery & API Evaluation Evaluate and compare open banking platforms including Plaid, Finicity, MX, AeroPay, Trustly, and emerging providers Assess onboarding models, API capabilities, tokenization approaches, fraud controls, and ACH orchestration capabilities Recommend partner selection strategy, sequencing, and integration prioritization Advise on long-term scalability, supportability, and ecosystem positioning Participate in partner discovery and executive-level strategy discussions

Responsibilities

• Lead open banking partner discovery and evaluation
• Define pay-by-bank product strategy and implementation roadmap
• Advise on ACH settlement, fraud, and payment risk frameworks
• Map end-to-end consumer enrollment and transaction lifecycle
• Support executive and board-level strategic initiatives
• Evaluate API capabilities and integration models
• Recommend merchant adoption and commercialization strategies
• Guide payment orchestration and infrastructure modernization
• Participate in partner and stakeholder strategy sessions
• Provide implementation readiness and launch advisory support

Benefits

• High executive visibility
• Strategic advisory engagement
• Flexible consulting structure
• Opportunity to shape enterprise payment transformation
• Exposure to leading open banking initiatives
• Collaborative executive leadership environment