Line Compliance at EXL South Africa

Job Description

1st Line of Defense Risk & Compliance Manager. 

• EXL is looking to hire a 1LoD Risk & Compliance Manager to oversee the Off-Shore 1LoD responsibilities (across South Africa) of EXL by adoption of the Compliance and Risk Management Framework ensuring full compliance of regulatory requirements, in the delivery of our authorized permissions held by our regulatory host (principal firm) in the UK. Activities are regulated by the FCA, ICO and Ofcom.
• The primary purpose of this role is to protect EXL from potential risks and adverse regulatory issues by ensuring adherence of all necessary regulatory policies and procedures in Off-Shore delivery centers.
• The ideal candidate should have extensive Risk & Compliance experience within an FCA regulated financial services environment. Experience supporting Insurance and/or Credit Broking activities, including knowledge of ICOBS, would be advantageous, although candidates from other regulated sectors will also be considered.

The ideal candidate should be experienced in managing key stakeholders across the business and reporting management information effectively across leadership.

Responsibilities

• Support the Head of Operations within the 1LoD managing the risks they generate as part of their day-to-day activities. 
• Lead first line risk and compliance oversight for EXL UK's Insurance Intermediary and Credit Broking activities, ensuring adherence to FCA requirements including ICOBS, CONC, Consumer Duty, and associated regulatory obligations while embedding effective controls and good customer outcomes across operations 
• Risk ownership and Management; identifying, assessing and managing inherent and residual risks in their specific business area through Risk and Control Self-Assessments and additional ad hoc risk assessments. 
• Control Implementation and operations; Designing, implementing, and maintaining effective internal controls and procedures to mitigate identified risks, in line with EXL’s overall risk appetite and policies. 
• Create, embed and track an appropriate 1LoD Compliance Monitoring Plan to provide assurance and validation of effectiveness of the controls maintained and reported by the business 
• Business Resilience; ensuring EXL builds and maintains strong resilience across business areas like Technology, Operations, WFM etc. to prevent customer detriment. Complete all operational resilience activities with support of relevant business areas including 1LoD sign off for the Operational Resilience Self-Assessment 
• Change management: monitoring and risk assessing adherence of change implementation and delivery against the approved change request, regulation and EXL’s business resilience 
• Customer Interaction; oversight of and support in carrying out key customer facing processes such as customer assessments and customer journey mapping. 
• Prepare reports for senior management, including the UK Governance Structure as appropriate with analysis where required Incident Management; Manage incidents including progression and completion of actions to close an operational or incident with accurate root cause analysis, whilst ensuring incidents are escalated to 2LoD with regular updates provided. 
• Assist with identification and management of further action, incident or risk owners, ensuring appropriate 1LoD sign off to close the incident or risk. 
• Assist with the Quality control teams and determine the effectiveness of the agent activities in the customer facing teams. 
• Documentation and Reporting; documenting processes, controls, risk assessments, and all associated decisions and escalating to 2LoD and senior management. 
• Compile the monthly MI reporting for the SLT Committee. 
• Provide 1LoD Compliance Monitoring updates against the 1LoD Compliance Monitoring Plan to the Risk & Compliance Committee. 
• Lead the adoption and deployment of regulatory initiatives including Consumer Duty within the Off-Shore locations with a particular focus on ‘outcome testing’. 
• Contribute to the Conduct and Control culture of the organization through knowledge sharing and awareness on the importance of Compliance. 
• In collaboration with the 2LoD team, maintain knowledge and adhere to the relevant regulatory and legal obligation of the function managed, including local and wider group policies. 
• Maintain and deliver to relevant committee insightful Horizon scanning dashboards to raise awareness of future changes to regulatory and financial environment that may have an impact on EXL and recommend appropriate actions. 
• Support 2LoD in the preparation and submit compliance reports to regulatory bodies as required. 
• Assist and support 2Lod with the Compliance Monitoring Program including taking ownership of monitoring 1LoD tasks 

Competence Requirements:

• Sufficient breadth and depth of Compliance experience to make critical assessments and sound business decisions. 
• Experience gained within a Financial Services Compliance function, ideally within Insurance and Credit Broking. 
• Comprehensive understanding of the key expectations the FCA has of a regulated firm. 
• Strong communication skills (both written and oral). 
• Strong time management skills to meet agreed deadlines. 
• Proven interpersonal skills with ability to work with a fair degree of autonomy and demonstrate initiative and a sense of personal accountability but remain a team player and enjoy contributing 
• Provide training and guidance to employees on compliance-related matters. • Ability to work well in a small, collaborative team in both on-shore and off-shore locations. 
• Comfortable with working in dotted lines organizational structurers. 

Consumer Duty: 

• Drive the embedding of Consumer Duty responsibilities and obligations (including Vulnerable Customers) to develop, implement and monitor compliance with the Duty. To do this there is an expectation for the candidate to have a good understanding of the Duty to deliver: 
• Ability to develop and implement Consumer Duty related policies and procedures that are fit for purpose. 
• Track and report on the effectiveness of compliance efforts and identify areas for improvement. 
• Communicate the Duty to staff, senior management and the Board and provide relevant training. 
• Assess services offered to ensure they meet the Duty standards. 
• Collaborate with different departments and stakeholders to ensure compliance. 

Qualifications

Requirements:

• Sufficient breadth and depth of Compliance experience to make critical assessments and sound business decisions. 
• Experience gained within a Financial Services Compliance function, ideally within Debt Collection and Debt Administration. 
• Comprehensive understanding of the key expectations the FCA has of a regulated firm.
• Strong communication skills (both written and oral). 
• Strong time management skills to meet agreed deadlines. 
• Proven interpersonal skills with ability to work with a fair degree of autonomy and demonstrate initiative and a sense of personal accountability but remain a team player and enjoy contributing 
• Provide training and guidance to employees on compliance-related matters.
• to a cooperative environment; Ability to work well in a small, collaborative team in both on-shore and off-shore locations.
• Comfortable with working in dotted lines organizational structurers. 
• Must have 3-6 years of experience
• Must have a Bachelor's Degree