SUMMARY

• 10+ years’ experience in the banking industry working in technology based departments such as Payment Systems Department and Hardware Engineering Department
• 7+ years’ hands - on experience in installing patches, maintaining, troubleshooting and testing SWIFT products such as SWIFT Alliance Access, SWIFT Alliance Entry, SWIFT Alliance Gateway, SWIFT Web Platform, SWIFT Net link Alliance Messaging Hub, Relationship Management Application, Sanction Screening, and KYC services
• Complete understanding of the global payments landscape along with comprehensive knowledge of handling MT/MX SWIFT transactions in Message Categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, and SWIFT protocols
• 5+ years’ solid experience of installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting IBM WBIFN, Message Broker, and WebSphere MQ tools
• Functional contribution in designing and re-engineering the Central Financial Messaging Hub by applying the latest technology models for designing, testing and evaluating the process, and formulating the business case
• Hands-on experience in assessing the level of SWIFT Cybersecurity risk for customers and performing gap analysis according to defined system architecture known as Customer Security Program (CSP)
• Solid experience in Message Broker with demonstrable knowledge in workflow process enhancement in Letter of Credits & Bank Guarantees
• Active cooperation in compiling data management goals set for designing, planning, and documenting the phases of large-scale banking projects as well as controlling, closing and making reports on the phases for several projects in the Payment System Department
• Extensive experience in analyzing and documenting the functional requirements for message filtering solutions, organizing and managing sanction lists
• Efficient collaboration with the project team for organizing different test scenarios and providing UAT documentations
• Familiar with global standards in payment card industries such as EMV Technology and PCI-DSS
• Strong experience in working with project managers, supervisors, and business analysts to identify inter-project task dependencies, limits, and potential risks as well as providing recommendations and solutions to mitigate the risks
• Proven leadership in conducting exclusive workshops with program managers, end users, and other stakeholders for integration to and automation of standard financial messaging systems and applications
• Effective collaboration with projects managers in software vendor companies to perform frequent risk assessment, preparing reports, and escalating potential issues in project deliverable time schedule

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Strong knowledge: on SWIFT transactions and services; ST400, SAA, SAG, SAW, AMH, RMA, Alliance Lite2, SWIFTNet PKI, SWIFTNet Link, FIN Copy, IBAN Plus, SWIFTgpi, Sanction Screening, KYC, SWIFT Smart, Watch Traffic Analysis, HSM, VPN Boxes

Solid knowledge: of MS Suite, Visio, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook

Extensive hands-on: experience in payment processing transactions

Operating Systems (Platforms): IBM AIX, UNIX, Red Hat Linux, VMS, Microsoft Windows 2003/2008/2012/2016 Server

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Payment Transaction Consultant Assistant Director

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Worked closely with operators, supervisors, and managers in the FX department on handling SWIFT messages (MT 103, MT101, MT200, MT202, and MT202Cov)
• Determined operational objectives, business functions, system functional/non-functional requirements, and risk assessment documents for Domestic Banking Guarantee System based on standard messaging infrastructure
• Designed and developed business process flows for the projects of Centralized System for Domestic Letter of Credit System based on 15022 & 20022
• Elicited, analyzed, and documented functional requirements for the implementation of SWIFT Sanction Screening service while organizing and managing country lists as well as search engine and hits
• Conducted analysis on the functional requirements of the project for running KYC Service and supporting the implementation of KYC for several banks and financial institutions to ensure on correspondents due diligence in correspondent banking relationships
• Actively worked with a technical team giving technical consultation services at different levels for Installing, configuring, testing, maintaining, administering and upgrading SWIFT Systems and Networks, software database applications, servers and workstations (SAA, SAG, SAW, SWIFTNet link, HSMs, and VPN Boxes)
• Led a technical team for establishing and managing a new SWIFT Service Bureau in different areas including operations, software, SIP, helpdesk, etc.),
• Designed, developed and tested Centralized Financial Messaging Hub using the latest messaging standards as 15022 & 20022 in XML format
• Developed and documented detailed functional requirements for the project of Financial Messaging HUB based on IBM WBIFN to connect 36 Banks and Financial Institutions in Member Administered Closed User Group (MA-CUG)
• Performed initial gap analysis, system requirements documentation, and risk assessment of the migration, as well as finding the appropriate scheme selection strategy assessment to begin research process for the compliance of Iran’s card payment infrastructure with EMV technology
• Closely collaborated with the technical team in the project of PCI DSS compliance to gather the necessary information via questionnaires and other feasible methods as well as security assessment procedures to meet the data security standards .and to provide the regulatory body of the Central Bank with the strategical policies to be made and the initiatives to be taken for the banking community as well as other stakeholders to map out applicable regulations and to develop an overall cross-regulatory compliance strategy for PCI DSS
• Effectively collaborated with the management team for onboarding and joining Iranian banks to SWIFT network
• Worked with internal departments to design the process of business analysis on the project of Electronic Bank Customer Profile based on IBM-IFW and to prepare User Acceptance Test documentation
• Prepared the workflow changes in the architecture of a web-based payment messaging system for the Secretariat Office of Asian Clearing Union (in 9 Asian Member Countries) approaching international banking transaction sustainability

SWIFT Consultant (Part time) ABS SWIFT Service Bureau

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Actively led the technical project management for designing, establishing, and running ABS SWIFT Service Bureau from scratch to connect more than 26 Banks to SWIFT network
• Translated technical application specifications into functional and non-functional business requirements for the implementation of IBM WebSphere Business Integration for Financial Network (WBIFN) as a message hub for the country with more than 22000 branches inter-connected
• Collaborated with the technical team in an integration project to procure, set up, install, configure, and customize IBM WBIFN
• Trained and instructed more than 250 groups and individuals for financial message formats preparations, routing, reporting, and troubleshooting
• Generated and accomplished Test Plans for the WBIFN Messaging Hub project as a result of Straight Through Processing of the Message Format (ISO 20022) using XML
• Effectively collaborated in analyzing and planning for SWIFT Service Bureau operation prerequisites to meet the requirements of Shared Infrastructure Program (SIP) Version 2 & 3

Head of SWIFT Section

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Efficiently supervised several migration procedures of S.W.I.F.T. applications and products with 99.99% goal achievement
• Performed business analysis for the project of linking Oracle-Based Application to SAA
• Trained more than 500 end users from different banks for Inter-bank FX Market Operations based on SWIFT MT category 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9
• Worked effectively with a technical team to improve Straight Through Processing payment messages in an integration project into back office application
• Collaborated with a project team in defining payment posting process including NAK result troubleshooting, semantic and syntax error resolution
• Enthusiastically provided client service support on payment processing information including queries, reports, and communication