W-20: Operations Ways of Work¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Document | W-20 |
| Title | Operations Ways of Work |
| Status | Draft |
| Owner | COO (Kamil Shaikh) |
| Created | 2026-04-05 |
| Review | Quarterly |
| Depends On | W-01 (Company Operating Rhythm), SLA-MANAGEMENT-FRAMEWORK, CHANNEL-HEALTH-MONITORING-STANDARD, MERCHANT-ONBOARDING-STANDARD |
Purpose¶
Define how Simpaisa's operations team monitors, manages, and maintains the payment gateway on a daily basis. This document covers the end-to-end operational cadence from shift handover through settlement, including escalation paths and reporting obligations. It applies to all operations staff across PK, BD, NP, IQ, EG, and AE.
1. Daily Operations Cadence¶
1.1 Shift Handover¶
Operations runs on a follow-the-sun model across PK (GMT+5), BD (GMT+6), and AE (GMT+4).
| Shift | Hours (Local) | Primary Coverage | Handover To |
|---|---|---|---|
| PK Morning | 08:00–17:00 PKT | PK, NP | AE Afternoon |
| BD Morning | 08:00–17:00 BST | BD, NP | PK Morning |
| AE Afternoon | 12:00–21:00 GST | AE, IQ | PK Morning (next day) |
Handover protocol:
- Outgoing shift completes a handover note in the operations channel (Slack #ops-handover) no later than 15 minutes before shift end.
- Handover note must include: open incidents, pending settlements, partner escalations, and any anomalies flagged by monitoring.
- Incoming shift acknowledges receipt within 10 minutes of shift start.
- Any incident not acknowledged is auto-escalated to the COO.
1.2 Daily Operations Stand-up¶
- Time: 09:00 GST (11:00 PKT, 11:00 BST) — 15 minutes maximum.
- Participants: Operations leads from each country, COO (optional).
- Format: Each country lead reports: (a) settlement status, (b) open incidents, (c) partner issues, (d) volume anomalies.
- Output: Updated daily ops dashboard.
1.3 Transaction Monitoring¶
Transaction monitoring runs continuously via automated alerting with human review.
Automated checks (real-time):
| Check | Threshold | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Velocity spike | >200% of 7-day rolling average per merchant | Alert to ops channel; manual review within 15 minutes |
| Single transaction amount | >USD 10,000 equivalent | Flag for manual review |
| Decline rate spike | >30% decline rate over 30-minute window | Alert to ops and engineering channels |
| Channel downtime | No successful transaction for 15 minutes on any active channel | Page on-call engineer; alert ops lead |
| Fraud pattern match | Rule-based pattern detection (velocity + geography + device) | Block transaction; flag for compliance review |
Human review cadence:
- Operations analyst reviews flagged transactions every 30 minutes during business hours.
- Overnight: automated blocks only; manual review at start of next shift.
- All blocked transactions must be resolved (released or confirmed as fraud) within 4 hours during business hours.
1.4 Settlement Monitoring¶
- Settlement dashboard reviewed at 10:00 and 16:00 local time by each country operations lead.
- Any settlement file not received by expected time triggers an alert to the partner management team.
2. Settlement Process¶
2.1 Settlement Cycles¶
| Market | Cycle | Cut-off | File Exchange | Reconciliation Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PK | T+1 | 23:59 PKT | SFTP by 06:00 PKT (T+1) | 12:00 PKT (T+1) |
| BD | T+1 | 23:59 BST | API push by 08:00 BST (T+1) | 14:00 BST (T+1) |
| NP | T+1 | 23:59 NPT | SFTP by 07:00 NPT (T+1) | 13:00 NPT (T+1) |
| IQ | T+2 | 23:59 AST | Manual file by 10:00 AST (T+2) | 16:00 AST (T+2) |
| AE | T+1 | 23:59 GST | API push by 08:00 GST (T+1) | 12:00 GST (T+1) |
2.2 Reconciliation Process¶
- Automated matching: Platform reconciliation engine matches settlement files against transaction records. Target: >99.5% auto-match rate.
- Exception handling: Unmatched items are queued for manual reconciliation. Operations analyst must resolve within the reconciliation deadline.
- Discrepancy categories:
- Amount mismatch: Escalate to partner management if >0.1% of settlement value.
- Missing transactions: Check channel health logs; escalate to engineering if system fault suspected.
- Duplicate transactions: Flag for reversal; notify merchant.
- Sign-off: Country operations lead signs off daily reconciliation. Finance receives confirmed settlement report by reconciliation deadline.
2.3 Discrepancy Resolution¶
| Severity | Definition | Resolution SLA | Escalation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | <USD 100 total discrepancy | 48 hours | Operations lead |
| Medium | USD 100–1,000 total discrepancy | 24 hours | COO |
| High | >USD 1,000 total discrepancy or systemic pattern | 4 hours | COO + CFO |
Unresolved discrepancies exceeding 72 hours are reported to the CFO regardless of severity.
3. Partner Escalation Process¶
3.1 Operational Escalations¶
| Issue Type | First Response | Escalation Path |
|---|---|---|
| Partner API downtime | Operations analyst contacts partner NOC | 30 min: Operations lead → 1 hr: COO → 2 hr: CDO (for technical fallback) |
| Settlement file delay | Operations analyst contacts partner operations | 2 hr: Operations lead → 4 hr: COO |
| Fraud from partner channel | Block channel immediately | Compliance team → COO → CDO (for technical block) |
| Integration bug | Log ticket with partner | Operations lead → CDO engineering (for Simpaisa-side investigation) |
3.2 Escalation to CDO¶
The CDO organisation is engaged when:
- A technical root cause is suspected on Simpaisa's side.
- A partner integration requires code changes or API version updates.
- Channel health monitoring (per CHANNEL-HEALTH-MONITORING-STANDARD) indicates a platform-side fault.
- A security incident is suspected (immediate escalation to CISO under CDO).
Escalation is via the #ops-engineering Slack channel and a corresponding Jira ticket tagged ops-escalation.
4. SLA Tracking¶
SLA tracking follows the SLA Management Framework. Operations is responsible for:
4.1 Internal SLA Monitoring¶
| Metric | Target | Measurement | Reporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction success rate | ≥99.0% per channel | Real-time dashboard | Daily to COO |
| Settlement reconciliation rate | ≥99.5% auto-match | Daily reconciliation report | Daily to COO, weekly to CFO |
| Incident response time | <15 min acknowledgement | Incident log | Weekly to COO |
| Partner escalation resolution | Per SLA Management Framework | Escalation tracker | Weekly to COO |
4.2 Partner SLA Monitoring¶
- Each partner has defined SLAs in their commercial agreement (uptime, response time, settlement timeliness).
- Operations tracks partner SLA compliance daily.
- Breaches are logged and reported to the COO weekly.
- Persistent breaches (3+ in a rolling 30-day window) trigger a formal partner review (see W-21).
5. Operational Reporting¶
5.1 Daily Report¶
- Produced by: Operations lead (rotational across countries).
- Delivered to: COO, Country Heads.
- Deadline: 10:00 GST.
- Contents: Previous day transaction volumes by market and channel, settlement status, open incidents, flagged transactions, channel health summary.
5.2 Weekly Report¶
- Produced by: Operations lead.
- Delivered to: COO, CDO, CFO.
- Deadline: Monday 12:00 GST.
- Contents: Week-over-week volume trends, SLA compliance summary, incident summary, partner performance summary, reconciliation exception summary.
5.3 Monthly Report¶
- Produced by: COO.
- Delivered to: CEO, ELT.
- Deadline: 5th business day of following month.
- Contents: Monthly transaction volumes and trends, settlement performance, SLA compliance, incident analysis, partner health scorecard, operational cost summary, capacity planning inputs.
6. Channel Health Monitoring¶
Per the CHANNEL-HEALTH-MONITORING-STANDARD, operations is responsible for:
- Monitoring dashboards: Each active channel (bank, mobile money operator, card network) has a real-time health dashboard showing success rate, latency, and error rate.
- Health check frequency: Synthetic health checks run every 5 minutes per channel.
- Degradation response:
- Success rate drops below 95%: Alert to operations channel.
- Success rate drops below 90%: Page on-call engineer; COO notified.
- Success rate drops below 80%: Activate failover channel if available; escalate to CDO.
- Channel maintenance windows: Partners must notify Simpaisa of planned maintenance ≥48 hours in advance. Operations updates the maintenance calendar and notifies affected merchants.
7. Tooling¶
| Tool | Purpose | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Grafana | Transaction monitoring dashboards | DevOps (CDO) |
| PagerDuty | Alerting and on-call rotation | DevOps (CDO) |
| Slack (#ops-handover, #ops-engineering) | Shift handover and escalation | Operations |
| Jira | Incident and escalation tracking | Operations |
| Settlement Engine | Automated reconciliation | Engineering (CDO) |
Appendix: RACI¶
| Activity | Operations | COO | CDO | CFO | Country Head |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction monitoring | R | A | I | - | I |
| Settlement reconciliation | R | A | I | I | I |
| Partner escalation (operational) | R | A | I | - | I |
| Partner escalation (technical) | R | I | A | - | I |
| Daily ops report | R | A | I | - | I |
| Weekly ops report | R | A | I | I | I |
| Monthly ops report | I | R/A | I | I | I |
| Channel health response | R | A | C | - | I |