Senior Business Analyst

Job Title: Senior Business Analyst

Role Purpose

The Senior Business Analyst will act as a key liaison between business stakeholders and technology/operations teams. They will ensure that business needs are accurately captured, analyzed, and transformed into solutions that support Bank Muscat’s strategic objectives, especially in areas such as digital banking, process optimization, and business transformation.

Key Responsibilities

• Work closely with senior stakeholders and business units (e.g., Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Operations, Digital) to understand strategic goals and identify business opportunities.
• Lead the elicitation, documentation and validation of business requirements, functional specifications, use-cases, user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Analyse current business processes, systems and workflows; identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, risks and improvement opportunities; propose and help implement optimization and transformation initiatives.
• Support solution design by collaborating with IT architects, vendors and business users to ensure proposed solutions are fit for purpose, scalable and aligned with business objectives.
• Lead or participate in full project lifecycle activities from requirements through design, user acceptance testing (UAT), deployment and post-go-live support.
• Develop business cases, feasibility studies, cost-benefit analyses, risk assessments and ROI modelling for proposed initiatives.
• Monitor and report project or programme progress, risks, issues, and dependencies to senior management; escalate where needed.
• Prepare dashboards, reports and presentations for senior management highlighting progress, impact, and value realisation.
• Mentor, coach and guide junior business analysts and analysts to develop their skills and ensure quality of deliverables.
• Stay current on industry trends, emerging technologies (e.g., digital banking, data analytics, automation, AI) and best-practice business analysis methodologies; actively suggest enhancements to BA processes and frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with internal governance, policies, regulatory requirements and controls relevant to banking operations and technology.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Finance, Economics or related discipline.

• Master’s degree (MBA or related) is highly desirable.

• Professional certification such as CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional), PMI-PBA, or equivalent is a plus.

•Minimum 5-8 years of experience in business analysis role, preferably within banking/financial services, with at least 2-3 years in a senior or lead capacity.

• Strong track record of driving business change, delivering complex projects involving multiple stakeholders and integrating business & IT.

• Deep knowledge of banking products/services, processes (e.g., retail, corporate banking, digital channels), and strong understanding of regulatory/compliance environment.

•Strong analytical skills, including data analysis, process modelling, requirement specification, and business case development.

• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and facilitation skills (able to engage senior executives and technical teams).

• Good knowledge of project delivery methodologies (waterfall, agile/scrum) and tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Visio, BPMN, SQL, Excel, BI tools) is preferred.

• Experience in user acceptance testing, process re-engineering, change management, and post-implementation support.

• Ability to mentor junior staff, lead workshops, and drive continuous improvement in business analysis practices.

Key Competencies & Skills

• Strategic thinking & business acumen

• Problem-solving and decision-making

• Excellent verbal and written communication

• Influencing and negotiation

• Stakeholder engagement and relationship-building

• Process orientation and systematic approach

• Change and transformation mindset

• Technical literacy (ability to liaise with IT/technical teams)

• High level of integrity, accountability and continuous learning

Typical Performance Metrics

• Quality and completeness of requirement documentation

• Number and value of process improvements or efficiency gains delivered

• Project delivery within time, budget and scope

• Business value realised (cost savings, revenue enhancement, customer satisfaction improvements)

• Stakeholder satisfaction and user adoption

• Mentoring and development of analytical capability within the team