PRAKASH VENKATESAN
Dubai
Summary
Seasoned banking and card operations professional with over 11 years of experience across UAE and India. Expertise includes card lifecycle management, fraud monitoring, payment operations, and PCI-DSS compliance. Demonstrated ability in enhancing operational controls, conducting issue investigations, and facilitating cross-functional projects, with a focus on risk reduction and effective implementation of payment solutions.
Overview
1
1
Language
11
11
years of professional experience
Work History
Operations Specialist Clearing & Cash Management
Commercial Bank of Dubai
Dubai
08.2024 - Current
- Led operational delivery across clearing, settlement, cash/vault operations, multi-currency Nostro/Vostro reconciliations, and cash GL balancing, coordinating efforts of 44-member team to ensure seamless operations.
- Drive cross-functional implementation of payment and operations enhancements, including IBMB digital dispute capabilities, Dexter AI-supported straight-through processing, ICCS auto-settlement, and automated vault reconciliation.
- Support operational control and risk-mitigation frameworks aligned with applicable Central Bank requirements; monitor exceptions, process performance, and remediation actions.
- Prepared and presented operational metrics, risk profiles, project milestones, and management updates while coordinating with internal stakeholders and external clearing-house partners to enhance communication and transparency.
- Contribute to ATM/CDM/SCDM fleet and IST switch migration activities, ensuring controlled implementation, operational readiness, and post-change monitoring.
- Investigated compliance breaches, prepared reports on findings, and suggested corrective actions.
Specialist Merchant Acquiring & Card Issuing - FRM
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
Abu Dhabi
10.2023 - 08.2024
- Monitored merchant-acquiring and e-commerce transactions in real/near-real time, identifying suspicious patterns and mitigating potential fraud and operational risk.
- Investigated and resolved fraud cases, escalations, chargebacks, disputes, TC40 and scheme-reported fraudulent transactions, collaborating with stakeholders to ensure timely resolution.
- Configured and optimized fraud rules, alerts, and exception criteria using Mastercard Brighterion, CyberSource Decision Manager, MPCS, and Fiserv-related platforms.
- Worked with business teams, merchants, acquiring/issuing banks, and card-scheme stakeholders to strengthen fraud controls and address transaction and merchant-related risks.
- Applied merchant due diligence, conducted blacklist screening, and implemented risk controls to uphold acquiring and franchise compliance requirements.
- Conducted comprehensive market research to identify emerging trends, informing strategic planning and decision-making.
- Analysed complex data sets to inform evidence-based decisions, enhancing project success rates.
- Oversaw compliance with regulatory standards, mitigating risks and safeguarding organisational reputation.
Deputy Manager – Card Lifecycle & Deliverables Management
Equitas Small Finance Bank
Chennai
03.2022 - 09.2023
- Managed end-to-end card issuance and personalization workflows, ensuring secure handling, validation, printing, embossing, encoding, dispatch, and reconciliation.
- Worked with Visa Online, Mastercard Connect, and RuPay portals for BIN-range setup, transaction-routing profiles, authorization parameters, and Issuer Public Key validation testing.
- Acted as Primary Key Custodian for card security operations, coordinating key ceremonies and HSM activities, including LMK/ZMK/PEK key processes, in line with PCI-DSS and payment-scheme security standards.
- Managed card-related core banking and charge-engine configurations for annual fees, replacement/re-issuance fees, and ATM transaction charges.
- Led migration from manual tracking to automated deliverables management process, streamlining courier API integration, AWB generation, SLA tracking, and customer notifications.
- Maintained SOPs and controls for dispatch exceptions, returned-to-origin cards, re-dispatch, secure inventory, and card-destruction processes to ensure compliance and operational integrity.
Team Leader – Production Delivery
Giesecke & Devrient MS India Private Limited
Chennai
12.2015 - 01.2022
- Managed banking-card production and personalization operations, ensuring accurate data generation, file handling, smart-card profile creation, and thorough testing and quality checks.
- Maintained operational controls and documentation supporting PCI, NPCI, and GSMA audit requirements; coordinated production planning, fulfillment, SLA/TAT, and daily delivery targets.
- Supported new product implementation, production testing, technical issue resolution, SOP development, and process improvement.
- Coordinated UPP application installation, upgrades, and troubleshooting, delivering operational support across GSM and banking-card production environments.
- Handled HSM operations and primary key custodianship, facilitating certificate/public-key requests, installation, configuration, and providing technical support.
Education
MBA - Production & Operations Management
National Institute of Business Management
Chennai, Tamil NaduSkills
- Card Scheme Operations: Visa Online Mastercard Connect RuPay BIN configuration Issuer Public Key validation
- Card Compliance & Controls: PCI-DSS-aligned controls Scheme security standards Regulatory control support SOPs Audit readiness
- Issuing & Card Lifecycle: Card issuance and personalisation HSM/key custodianship Card fees and charge engine rules Card migrations
- Acquiring, Fraud & Disputes: Merchant acquiring E-commerce fraud monitoring Chargebacks TC40/scheme fraud reports Fraud rules
- Risk, Projects & Governance: Issue investigation Root-cause analysis support Risk mitigation Project coordination SLA/KPI reporting
- Cash management
- Systems & Platforms: Mastercard Brighterion CyberSource Decision Manager Fiserv Flexcube CRM HSM SFTP/PGP
- Visa Online Mastercard Connect RuPay portals Mastercard Brighterion CyberSource Decision Manager Fiserv Flexcube CRM integration HSM/key management SFTP/PGP IST Switch ICCS Dexter DCR IBMB
- Data analysis
- Project planning and coordination
LANGUAGES
English (Advanced) | Tamil (Advanced) | Telugu (Advanced) | Hindi (Conversational)
Timeline
Operations Specialist Clearing & Cash Management
Commercial Bank of Dubai
08.2024 - Current
Specialist Merchant Acquiring & Card Issuing - FRM
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
10.2023 - 08.2024
Deputy Manager – Card Lifecycle & Deliverables Management
Equitas Small Finance Bank
03.2022 - 09.2023
Team Leader – Production Delivery
Giesecke & Devrient MS India Private Limited
12.2015 - 01.2022
MBA - Production & Operations Management
National Institute of Business Management