Consultant Exchange Control at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• To provide specialist advice and support in area of specialisation enabling the provision of sound compliance services.

Job Description

To facilitate the process whereby clients’ requests must be submitted to the Financial Surveillance Department (“FinSurv”) at the South African Reserve Bank (“SARB”) and where applicable, adjudicate on requests that fall within their mandate to do so.

• Applications and Self-Adjudications are processed in the acceptable time frames as detailed in the relevant SLA’s with the Business Areas. 
• 85% of applications submitted to FinSurv must receive a positive response. 
• Self-adjudications are factually correct and not questioned by the recipients (5% variance allowed for interpretation issues). 
• FinSurv replies and self-adjudicated response are to be communicated to the recipients in the time frames referred to above.  
• All completed applications and self-adjudications are suitably recorded together with the relevant documentation within 5 days from finalization. 
• Monitor the introduction of the Capital Flow Management Framework (“CFMF”) and participate in the process of rolling out the CFMF within the Absa Group.

To provide advice and interpretations of Exchange Control legislation to the business areas either formally or informally but not to provide “fit for processing” solutions

• Identifying certain trends and provide recommendations regarding training required for business area officials.
• Individual assistance provided to business areas based on the findings above. 

FinSurv is our primary regulator and therefore it is necessary to maintain a positive relationship with the officials of FinSurv and to provide them with the levels of cooperation to their satisfaction

• All terms and conditions in responses from FinSurv to applications explained to business areas, if not standard. 
•  All arrangements for meetings at SARB are communicated to the client within 2 days of receipt of Copies of all information and documentation prepared and available at the meeting. 
• Minutes of the meeting are to be produced and submitted to the client for signoff with 7 working days of the meeting. 
• Directives given by FinSurv during the meeting must be explained to the client and conveyed to the applicable business area 
•  Minutes of the meeting must be an accurate reflection of the discussions, without any changes from FinSurv in their response 

Contribute to the effective functioning of both the Excon Advisory team as well as the greater HOEC team

• Contributions (including Nil returns) provided to all internal requests for input to HOEC documents / initiatives by due date / Precedents / trends applicable to ECA’s identified and shared with relevant HOEC team members 
•  Contribute to preparation for Internal audit, and deal with any issues that are raised by them within the time frames requested 

Apply the highest standards of controls and risk management practices and behaviors and embed a positive risk and control culture. Demonstrate prudence, sound judgement and appropriate and timely escalations in the management of all types of risk applicable to my role.

• Understand my role in the business end to end processes, including applicable risks and controls and how this improves the service we provide to our customers 
•  Adhere to Absa frameworks, policies and procedures applicable to my role, demonstrating sound judgement and responsible risk management, and when required highlight breaches and request dispensations & waivers on a timely basis 
•  Report all risk events/incidents/issues immediately upon discovery and escalate significant events/incidents/issues using the defined process for my business area 
•  Help to understand why risk events/incidents/issues happened and identify how to prevent them in future - focusing on fixing root causes and taking ownership of identified actions 
• Proactively identify ways to improve the control environment by considering what could go wrong in the processes I operate and how errors could be prevented - focusing on fixing root causes and taking ownership of identified actions 
• Complete all mandatory training to deadline

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)