ACH Program Manager (Hybrid in CA) at First American in Santa Ana, CA

Job description

Who We Are Join a team that puts its People First! As a member of the First American family of companies, First American Trust is a federal savings bank that has provided banking, wealth management, and trust solutions on a national, full-service basis for more than five decades. Since 1889, First American (NYSE: FAF) has held an unwavering belief in its people. They are passionate about what they do, and we are equally passionate about fostering an environment where all feel welcome, supported, and empowered to be innovative and reach their full potential. Our inclusive, people-first culture has earned our company numerous accolades, including being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for eleven consecutive years. We have also earned awards as a best place to work for women, diversity and LGBTQ+ employees, and have been included on more than 50 regional best places to work lists. First American will always strive to be a great place to work, for all. For more information, please visit www.careers.firstam.com. What We Do First American Trust is seeking an experienced ACH Program Manager to lead the strategy, buildout, governance, and ongoing management of its ACH program. This individual will serve as the accountable program owner and ACH subject-matter expert, helping the bank safely scale from its current operating model to a high-volume environment supporting approximately 1.2 million ACH transactions per month. The ACH Program Manager will work closely with Operations, Treasury Management, Product, Compliance, Finance, Technology, Legal, Audit, and third-party providers. During the program expansion, the manager will partner with external ACH consultants and internal stakeholders to establish a sustainable operating model, strengthen controls, improve automation, prepare staff, and support successful onboarding of new Originators. What You'll Do: Establish program-level monitoring and reporting for ACH volume, value, return rates by category, unauthorized activity, exceptions, losses, processing quality, service levels, exposure usage, control performance, incidents, and remediation. Identify manual processes and lead automation priorities for returns, NOCs, exception management, customer notifications, file integration, reporting, and operational workflows. Partner with Technology and vendors to document business requirements, evaluate system capabilities, coordinate configuration and interfaces, perform user acceptance testing, manage defects, and support production implementation. Coordinate ACH risk assessments, annual Rules compliance audits, regulatory examinations, internal audits, vendor reviews, business continuity exercises, and timely remediation of findings. Monitor ACH rule changes, regulatory developments, fraud trends, and industry practices; translate changes into policies, procedures, controls, system requirements, communications, and training. Lead, coach, and develop ACH personnel through role-based training, cross-training, proficiency assessment, continuing education, and professional accreditation plans. Manage significant incidents and operational disruptions, including escalation, customer and management of communications, root-cause analysis, corrective action, and lessons learned. Provide clear updates and recommendations to senior management and governance committees, including decisions required, risks, dependencies, resource needs, milestones, and performance trends. Build productive relationships across business and control functions and influence outcomes without compromising compliance, risk, or operational control expectations. What You'll Bring: 7+ or more years of progressively responsible ACH, electronic payments, deposit operations, treasury management, payments risk, or related financial-services experience, including at least three years in a leadership, program-management, or supervisory capacity. Demonstrated experience owning or materially contributing to an A