Job Summary

SC Ventures is Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm. We were established to reinvent banking, as the significant technological disruptions to the industry was impacting its ability to serve clients and customers, in the ways they needed to be served.

About HAL
HAL is a B2B domestic and cross border marketplace being built for SMEs in the UAE. Incubated by SC Ventures, the ventures arm of Standard Chartered Bank, the platform will enable digital commerce and access to financial & value-added services. Hal ‘s vision is to connect multiple partners & ecosystems by bringing together buyers, sellers and financial institutions to a single platform. 

We want to help SMEs grow profitably, safely and with ease. Hal is being built for scale with the latest technologies and with a vision to truly become the one stop shop for SME's. We are looking to launch later in the year.”

About The Role
We are looking for a Product Manager that can help us build out the financial services vertical with the aspiration to be a leader in SME embedded finance solutions. 

The Product Manager will be responsible for development and building the first set of Financial Services Products. They will have the opportunity to design, build and ship the product with a high degree of ownership and autonomy. 

Key Responsibilities

Strategy
•    Lead and Own the development of the Embedded Finance and Financial Referral product vision and strategic direction by supporting leadership with insight-driven analysis. Identify and assess market opportunities through competitive landscape reviews, market studies, bringing clear perspectives on trends, gaps, and emerging consumer needs. 
•    Translate business objectives into strategic options and decision frameworks that highlight user value, experience implications, and business impact.
•    Have full autonomy to drive outcomes and delivery of features that meet quality standards and business objectives. 
•    Synthesize insights from market analysis, user research, and experience evaluations into clear, compelling narratives for leadership consumption.
•    Support informed decision-making by framing complex topics clearly, managing ambiguity, and ensuring stakeholder alignment around user-centric and business-driven outcomes.
•    Build the full end to product roadmap – ensuring adoption by SMEs, Marketplace Buyers and partner referred SMEs
•    Own product outcomes and drive timely delivery of features that meet quality standards and business objectives. Conduct competitive analysis and market research to identify opportunities and inform product direction. 

Business
The product manager should,
•    Work towards translating business workflows into intuitive digital experiences and interact directly with the development team
•    Should leverage on customer discovery, usage data and seller feedback to drive product market fit. 
•    Work with financial services partners to provide solutions for SMEs on the platform
•    Use data to measure funnel performance, platform utilization, customer satisfaction
•    Develop a deep understanding of SME behaviour 
•    Identify and remove friction points across the supply and demand sides of the marketplace
•    Create new financial services products for SMEs  
•    Prepare the marketplace for scalability for multi-vertical expansion and cross border initiatives  
•    Work with Chief Commercial Officer to validate the products and features are aligned to business outcomes

Processes
•    The product Manger will work on building the product from the scratch and also collaborate with teams to embed credit and compliance within the product. Collaborate with financial services partners to refer new business, co-create financial services products and interact with SMEs.

Risk Management
•    The product manager should ensure marketplace integrity by overseeing product data accuracy, guaranteeing product safety and quality, and implementing security measures to build customer trust and maintain platform compliance. 

Governance 
•    The product manager should ensure that the platform adheres to the business rules and legal standards.

Regulatory & Business Conduct 
•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key stakeholders
•    Internal teams: Engineering, Design, Marketing, Sales, Support, compliance and senior management.  External groups: Customers, Suppliers, Partners, Investors

Other Responsibilities
•    Embed Here for good and Group’s brand and values in HAL. Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures; Multiple functions (double hats).

Skills and Experience

•    Product management experience in UAE
•    Strategic decision making
•    SME needs
•    SME financing
•    AI familiarity
•    Project Management
•    Stakeholder Management

Qualifications

Education     MBA OR Equivalent
Languages     English, Arabic (Desirable)

The product manager will work closely with designers and developers to build the product. The product manager should have, 

•    8+ years of experience in product management or product leadership, fintech experience highly preferred
•    Hands-on experience working in complex, multi-stakeholder and ambiguous environments, with the ability to drive clarity through data and structured analysis
•    Proven ability to develop and execute product strategy and roadmaps that align with business objectives and deliver measurable results
•    Exposure to product development lifecycle and execution of complex strategies
•    Experience working with cross-functional teams 
•    Experience working with financial regulators in the UAE
•    Outstanding communication and presentation skills with ability to articulate complex product concepts to diverse audiences 
•    Strategic thinking combined with tactical execution capabilities, balancing long-term vision with short-term priorities
•    Ability to operate in ambiguity and build from ground up with constrained resources  
•    Comfortable running discovery, writing strong PRDs and managing iterative delivery cycles  
•    Experience in the UAE or MENA region and familiarity with SME buying behaviour is strongly preferred  

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.