Agentic Payments Lead - Core Payments & Trust Layer in Edinburgh

Location: London, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Glasgow

Working Pattern: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at one of our office locations above.

About this Opportunity: Agentic payments are moving from theory to reality: AI agents are increasingly able to initiate and complete transactions on behalf of customers—so long as consent, authentication, tokenised credentials, disputes, and fraud controls are designed for agent‑led journeys. In this role you'll define how Lloyds Banking Group responds across core payments, shaping our standards and rails readiness and building the investable roadmap that keeps us secure, interoperable, and commercially relevant as the ecosystem evolves.

This role exists to ensure Lloyds Banking Group shapes that future—not reacts to it. As Agentic Payments Lead, you'll define how agent‑initiated interactions intersect with UK and international payment rails, building the trust infrastructure, standards alignment, and investable roadmap that keeps LBG secure, interoperable, and commercially relevant as the ecosystem evolves.

This is a pivotal role to help Lloyds Banking Group understand and shape the future of agentic payments—payments initiated, configured, or completed by software agents acting on behalf of a consumer or business under defined permissions, policies, and limits. The role will build LBG's point of view and action plan for how agent‑led interactions will impact core payments (UK domestic and international payment rails, authentication, consent, dispute, fraud, and interoperability), while recognising the adjacent influence of 'agentic commerce' without making it the primary focus.

You will operate as a forward‑looking 'bridge' between payments rails + standards + technology and commercial outcomes, driving structured business development work: scanning the market, shaping LBG's position, defining priority capability gaps, and building investable pathways. This aligns to the team's mandate to 'understand the shifting landscape,' convert it into actionable hypotheses, and lead initiatives where LBG should defend and/or capture value.

What you'll lead:

• Strategy & Market Shaping (Core Payments lens): Define LBG's perspective on how agent‑mediated interactions and the 'agent economy' change payment initiation, authorisation, and servicing for core payments (not only card checkout) across UK domestic and international rails (FPS, CHAPS, Bacs, SEPA, cards and emerging tokenised payment models). Develop an actionable view of where LBG should lead, follow, partner, or standardise—especially where time‑to‑readiness is long (consent, verification, dispute rules, scheme integration).
• Standards, Rails & Technology (the 'payments trust layer'): Others are building agentic checkout. We're building agentic payment trust across the full lifecycle—consent, authentication, execution, exception handling, and servicing—on the rails customers rely on. Translate external standards/rails activity into concrete implications for LBG's core payment stack: identity & consent, tokenisation, agent registration/verification, non‑repudiation, dispute handling, fraud and liability models. Track and interpret emerging industry trust frameworks that enable agent‑initiated transactions (e.g., Trusted Agent Protocol, Agent Pay / Agentic Tokens, tokenised credential models). Produce 'rails & standards readiness' views for senior stakeholders (what changes are required, by when, and why).
• Business Development & Strategic Investment (from hypothesis to investable initiatives): Run structured Business Development assessments (opportunity sizing, feasibility, dependencies, risks, investment cases) to influence funding decisions. Identify a small set of near‑term 'no‑regret' moves that improve LBG readiness (e.g., consent & control patterns, authentication alignment, token/credential strategy, servicing/disputes design) even while the ecosystem is evolving, shaping where the Group invests vs partners vs waits.
• Cross‑Group alignment & enablement: Act as the 'connector' across Payments, Technology and propositions—uplifting organisational understanding (what it means, what changes, where to act). Create crisp materials for board‑level discussions (narrative, implications, choices). Build relationships with schemes, networks, standards bodies, and relevant partners to ensure LBG stays interoperable as agentic payment models become embedded. Where appropriate, represent LBG in industry forums shaping agent‑initiated payment norms and controls.
• Roadmap & Delivery Oversight: Own a multi‑year 'Agentic Payments (Core)' roadmap that identifies capability gaps, prioritised workstreams, and decision points. Support transition from concept → pilot → scale by ensuring readiness across risk, ops, controls, and customer outcomes.

Why Lloyds Banking Group: If you think all banks are the same, you'd be wrong. We're an innovative, fast‑changing business that is shaping finance as a force for good. A bank that empowers its people to innovate, explore possibilities, and grow with purpose.

What you'll need:

• Deep expertise in core payments (domestic/international rails, payment processing realities, controls, exceptions/servicing) including the payments value chain.
• Strong grasp of the 'agentic' shift: delegated authority models, consent and customer control, and the move from recommendation to execution.
• Ability to interpret and apply emerging industry frameworks enabling agent‑initiated payments (e.g., Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Agent Pay / Agentic Tokens, tokenised credential approaches like Shared Payment Tokens).
• Commercial/strategic toolkit: hypothesis‑led analysis, business case development, stakeholder influence, and narrative building (consistent with your PS&BD role expectations).
• Proven delivery experience - turning strategy and ideas into practice.
• Sufficient technical understanding and background to lead feature teams, experimentation and Proof of Concepts.

And any of these would be great:

• Experience engaging with schemes / standards bodies / ecosystem partners (or equivalent platform ecosystem work).
• Familiarity with identity, authentication, tokenisation, and digital trust patterns that underpin secure payments in new channels.
• Prior work in product strategy, partnerships, or commercialisation in regulated payments environments.

About working for us: Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms. We want our people to feel that they belong and can be their best, regardless of background, identity or culture. We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative. And it's why we especially welcome applications from under‑represented groups. We're disability confident. So if you'd like reasonable adjustments to be made to our recruitment processes, just let us know.

Benefits: We also offer a wide‑ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual performance‑related bonus
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

Ready for a career where you can have a positive impact as you learn, grow and thrive? Apply today and find out more.