Group Chief Information Officer - Fintech

Group Chief Information Officer - Fintech

Centurion, South Africa | Posted on 04/28/2026

One of the leading South African fintech and payment solutions companies specializing in payment collections, payroll processing, financial transaction management, and data‑driven automation services is recruiting for a group CIO.

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for defining and executing the technology strategy that enables secure, scalable, and compliant payment services within the South African fintech ecosystem. The role ensures that technology platforms support rapid innovation while maintaining resilience, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence.

The CIO will lead the design and delivery of payment infrastructure, digital platforms, and data capabilities that enable real‑time, API‑driven financial services across merchants, banks, and digital ecosystems. The CIO will be responsible for the enterprise technology strategy, regulatory technology compliance, vendor and cloud economics, enterprise data and AI strategy, and risk, security, and resilience for the company.

The role requires deep understanding of the South African National Payment System (NPS), payment rails, and regulatory frameworks overseen by the South African Reserve Bank and Pay Inc. These bodies regulate clearing, settlement, and participation in the payment ecosystem to ensure the safety and stability of the financial system.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

• Define and execute the company’s technology vision
• Architect scalable payment platforms supporting current platforms including real‑time payments, digital wallets, digital customer and merchant onboarding, embedded finance, open banking APIs, agentic payments and biometrics and digital identity
• Ensure technology architecture supports high availability, real‑time processing, and horizontal scalability
• Lead adoption of modern technologies including cloud‑native infrastructure, microservices architecture, event‑driven systems, API‑first design, mobile application design and development, and Artificial Intelligence
• Secure real‑time payments infrastructure
• API‑enabled partner ecosystem
• Resilient cloud infrastructure
• Regulatory compliant technology stack
• Industry‑leading fraud and identity capabilities

Own the design and delivery of payment capabilities across multiple rails including instant payments, card processing, EFT and debit orders, voucher rewards, QR and mobile payments, crypto currencies, digital identity and authentication, and cross‑border payment infrastructure.

Ensure platforms integrate with national payment and wider payments ecosystem where appropriate to support the company strategy. South Africa’s payment ecosystem includes multiple payment streams managed within the National Payment System and settled through the central bank infrastructure.

National Payment System Act and Authorisation Framework, SARB Prudential Authority operational resilience expectations, Financial crime legislation (FIC Act) and Data protection regulations (POPIA).

Implement enterprise cybersecurity frameworks.

Accountable for meeting board‑approved operational resilience tolerance levels for critical payment services.

Ensure 24/7 availability of payment systems.

Design business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.

Oversee fraud prevention and transaction monitoring platforms.

Oversee the development of an effective risk management strategy.

Lead high‑performing engineering teams responsible for payment processing platforms, customer and merchant APIs, mobile and digital applications, data platforms and analytics, cloud infrastructure and Dev Ops, cloud cost optimisation (Fin Ops), vendor concentration risk, contractual SLAs with banks, schemes, processors.

Ensure best practices in CI/CD pipelines, platform observability, site reliability engineering (SRE), and secure software development.

Technology financial stewardship of cloud spend optimisation and chargeback models, strategic vendor management and substitution planning, and commercial support to procurement and legal…