Senior Escrow Product Manager
Overview:
M&T Bank is seeking a strategic and execution-oriented Escrow & Virtual Account Management (VAM) Product Manager to lead the growth, modernization, and commercialization of our escrow and virtual account solutions. This role is responsible for defining product strategy, delivering new capabilities, managing the product roadmap, and ensuring that M&T's escrow and VAM offerings meet the evolving needs of commercial clients across multiple industry segments.
The successful candidate will combine deep product management expertise with strong commercial banking knowledge to deliver differentiated solutions for clients requiring fund segregation, reconciliation, liquidity optimization, and operational efficiency.
This position serves as the central point of accountability across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, Legal, Treasury Management, and Sales teams to successfully design, launch, and enhance escrow and virtual account solutions.
Primary Responsibilities:
Product Strategy & Market Leadership:
- Develop and execute the strategic roadmap for Escrow and Virtual Account Management solutions.
- Identify emerging client needs, industry trends, competitive threats, and fintech opportunities.
- Define product positioning and value propositions across Commercial Banking, Business Banking, and specialized vertical markets.
- Establish multi-year product vision aligned with M&T's deposits, liquidity, and treasury management strategies.
New Capability Development:
- Build business cases, secure funding, establish success metrics, and manage prioritization.
- Partner with Technology and Agile delivery teams to execute product initiatives.
- Drive capabilities such as:
- Self-service virtual account administration
- Virtual account-to-physical account reconciliation
- Enhanced reporting and analytics
- Treasury workstation and ERP integrations
- API connectivity
- Automated funding and sweeps
- Real-time payments and liquidity functionality
These initiatives align with existing roadmap priorities including reconciliation tools, Treasury Center integration, balance reporting, Direct Connect integration, and enhanced escrow reporting.
Market Segmentation & Client Differentiation:
Design product strategies tailored to the unique needs of distinct customer segments, including:
- Commercial Real Estate
- Property Management
- Attorney Trust Accounts
- Municipal Escrow
- 1031 Exchange Intermediaries
- Funeral Escrow Providers
- Leasing & Security Deposit Providers
- Large Corporate Treasury Organizations
- Franchise and Multi-Entity Businesses
The Product Manager will be responsible for understanding the operational workflows, regulatory requirements, reconciliation challenges, and reporting needs unique to each segment and ensuring solutions are designed accordingly. M&T's escrow offering currently supports multiple specialized escrow structures across these client types.
Virtual Account Management Solution Design:
Lead the evolution of M&T's Virtual Account Management platform.
Responsibilities include:
- Designing virtual account hierarchies and account structures.
- Defining cash concentration and fund segregation models.
- Supporting treasury visibility and liquidity optimization.
- Developing reporting and reconciliation frameworks.
- Building client-controlled virtual account administration capabilities.
- Enhancing integration with Treasury Center, APIs, ERP platforms, and treasury workstations.
- Supporting real-time information delivery and account governance.
Commercialization & Revenue Growth:
- Partner with Treasury Management, Sales, Segment Management, and Marketing teams to drive product adoption.
- Develop pricing, packaging, and go-to-market strategies.
- Create sales enablement materials and client-facing value propositions.
- Support large prospect opportunities and strategic client engagements.
Risk, Compliance & Operational Excellence:
- Ensure products operate within all regulatory, legal, and risk management requirements.
- Partner with Legal, Compliance, Operations, and Audit functions.
- Drive operational efficiency and scalability.
- Identify process improvement opportunities that enhance both client and employee experiences.
Success Measures:
The Escrow & VAM Product Manager will be accountable for:
- Growing escrow and VAM revenue
- Increasing product adoption and client penetration
- Delivering new roadmap capabilities on schedule
- Improving client satisfaction and retention
- Reducing operational complexity and servicing costs
- Enhancing competitive differentiation in target markets
- Improving treasury visibility and reconciliation outcomes for clients
Education and Experience Required:
- Bachelor’s degree
- 7 years’ proven product management experience in commercial banking, treasury management, liquidity solutions, or payments.
- OR in lieu of a degree,
- A combined minimum of 11 years’ higher education and/or work experience, including a minimum of 7 years
- Proven product management experience in commercial banking, treasury management, liquidity solutions, or payments.
Education and Experience Preferred:
- Experience with:
- Escrow services
- Virtual Account Management
- ZBA and Sweep solutions
- Treasury Management platforms
- ERP integrations
- Commercial deposit products
- Knowledge of commercial real estate, property management, legal trust, and fund administration workflows
- Proven experience launching and commercializing new banking or fintech capabilities.
- Experience managing cross-functional product delivery initiatives.
- Strong understanding of commercial deposit and liquidity products.
- Demonstrated ability to create product roadmaps and business cases.
- Experience working with Technology, Operations, Risk, and Sales organizations.