Cash Transfer Payments Specialist – Fintech Payments

Job Description

Cash Transfer Payments Specialist | World Food Programme

The Tone:
This is an International Professional position at the World Food Programme, located in Rome, Italy. It is a Limited Fixed-Term Appointment (LFT) for a renewable one-year period. The World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to peace. This role is crucial for designing and implementing adaptive and cost-efficient financial products and services, ensuring excellence in cash transfers and government-to-person (G2P) service provision, particularly in emergencies and complex settings.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Type: Limited Fixed-Term Appointment (LFT)
• Location: In-person – Rome, Italy

• Team: Reports to the Global Cash Coordinator.
• Mission: To design and implement an adaptive and cost-efficient approach to financial products and services aligned with WFP’s excellence in cash transfers and G2P service provision, with a particular focus on cash assistance in emergencies and complex settings.
• Tech Stack: USDC Stablecoin, CBDCs

What You’ll Actually Do
• External Engagement: Lead WFP’s external engagement with private and financial sector partners on cash assistance in emergencies, including Financial Service Providers (FSPs), specialized International Financial Institutions (IFI) bodies, regulators, and central banks.
• Innovation Portfolio: Lead the design of a healthy innovation portfolio for cash transfers in emergencies, prioritizing high-probability operational benefits like cross-border payments while also exploring transformational longshots such as USDC Stablecoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
• External Representation: Represent WFP in external forums on fintech and payments, identifying opportunities for improved cash delivery in emergencies and complex settings with a strong focus on operational efficiency, assurance, and inclusion.
• Regulatory Support: Support Country Offices in contexts characterized by economic volatility and/or regulatory constraints to engage with regulators, central banks, and other government authorities to identify and implement enabling conditions for cash assistance.
• Payments Advisory: Advise Country Offices on new or more cost-efficient and inclusive payments products and services, and support them in negotiations with financial service providers to improve service levels and reduce costs.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Professional with an advanced university degree in Finance, Economics, Management, Business Administration, International Development, Public Administration, or another field relevant to digital payments and financial services. A first university degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses may be considered.
• Experience: Minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible professional experience in digital payments, financial services, banking, fintech, payment systems, humanitarian cash assistance, or government-to-person payments. This includes demonstrated experience designing, implementing, or managing large-scale payment programmes in challenging contexts involving multiple financial service providers and diverse payment instruments.
• Skills: Strong understanding of digital payment ecosystems, payment infrastructure, and financial service delivery models. Knowledge of humanitarian cash assistance, social protection payments systems, and financial inclusion principles. Expertise in payment regulations, Know Your Client (KYC) requirements, sanctions compliance, consumer protection, data privacy, and payment security principles. Ability to analyze payment markets and evaluate financial service providers against operational, commercial, technical, and risk criteria. Demonstrated analytical, strategic thinking, communication, negotiation, and partnership-building skills. Fluency (level C) in English language.

• Bonus: Experience supporting innovation and adoption of emerging payment technologies, including real-time payments, digital identity, digital wallets, programmable payments, or blockchain-enabled payment solutions. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, or Portuguese.