Job Opening at Citi

Job description

Job Purpose

To provide compliance advisory support to the South African Markets Businesses.

Job Background/context

The primary role of the incumbent is to support the Markets Business in South Africa, which includes Equities, and FXLM. The jobholder will work closely with the EMEA Markets Compliance Team and provide regulatory support to the SA Markets Businesses. The employee will be based in South Africa. Compliance provides independent assurance that Citi’s compliance risks are adequately identified, assessed, monitored and reported, and underpins the responsibility of all Citi employees to manage Compliance and adherence to laws and regulations.

Key Responsibilities

The jobholder will have a dual role.

South African Markets Compliance Officer – JSE and Strate Compliance Officer

• Providing advice and assistance in resolving compliance and regulatory issues arising from sales and trading activities.
• Primary point of contact and interface between Citi and relevant regulators (primarily JSE and FSB) with respect to Markets Compliance and regulatory matters. This includes the coordination of exams and reviews, responses to information requests, provision of regular Markets metrics and notifications of significant events.
• Assist the management board in ensuring compliance with relevant legislation, regulatory rules and directives
• Highlight to senior management all concerns arising from failure of controls that could result in regulatory issues.
• Contribute to a “no surprise” culture by educating and communicating Compliance awareness throughout the markets organization.
• Provide recommendations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Compliance control environment.
• The job holder will need to make transaction-based decisions and exercise judgment on issues requiring further investigation or escalation.
• Ability to resolve trading issues to the satisfaction of both the business and in compliance with regulatory obligations.
• Completion of business reviews, supporting the Markets monitoring and surveillance function and providing compliance support on business projects. Ensure that the reviews conducted have a corrective action follow-up mechanism.
• Work closely with central compliance functions such as the EMEA Control Group, teams handling regulatory requests, registrations, surveillance and position monitoring.
• Liaison with other members of the Compliance team, ICG Businesses, and Ops and Technology on other ad-hoc issues that arise.
• Provision and organisation of compliance training for relevant Sales and Trading functions across the SA Markets Business.
• Ability to quickly pick up relevant policies and procedures and apply them in order to advise the business. The job holder will need to able to prepare guidance for the business areas where policies either do not exist or do not cover specific circumstances.
• The applicant should be prepared to cover not only the relevant trading hours but, where necessary, work extended hours and work well within a team.
• To act as the principal interface between the Markets Businesses and Regional Compliance, Global Compliance.
• Ensure Citi's Markets Compliance risks are adequately identified, assessed, controlled, monitored, tested and reported.
• Ensure Markets compliance policies, information and requirements are communicated to employees.
• Provide consultation and guidance to SA Markets Business management, country compliance staff and other employees on markets compliance related matters.
• Assist the markets businesses in developing solutions to potential issues involving compliance and regulatory risk relating to markets.
• Keep senior management informed of the status of the Compliance environment especially related to the JSE and FAIS
• Ensure that the compliance requirements in terms of the JSE rules, directives and notices are met.
• Ensure that the compliance requirements in terms of the FAIS Act, codes of conduct and Board Notices are met where applicable.
• Keep abreast of developments within the regulatory environment and benchmarking compliance with the related industry.
• Conduct and/or facilitate training, workshops and presentations on legislation and compliance.
• Deal with the various Regulators on matters escalated and act as liaison between the Regulators and the business.
• Ensure Citi's Markets Compliance risks are adequately identified, assessed, controlled, monitored, tested and reported.
• Regular interface with independent functions such as Audit
• Managing ad-hoc investigations into employee conduct and behaviour as necessary.

Qualifications

Knowledge/Experience

• Familiarity with corporate and investment banking, including the securities industry.
• An understanding of Equities trading and trading flows
• Minimum 5 years industry experience in Compliance.
• Understanding of legislative and regulatory landscape, and requirements imposed by relevant regulators, including the Financial Services Board, JSE Securities Exchange of South Africa
• Proven experience in dealing with Regulators (pre-existing relationships with key regulators would be an advantage)

Skills:

• Strong organisational skills
• Ability to communicate with the upper levels of the organisation
• The candidate must be able to provide high calibre advice in a clear and concise manner, which is consistent and appropriate to the audience.
• Teamwork is critical to the group and any candidate will need to display strong skills in this area, whether it is sharing issues and knowledge or covering for others where necessary

Qualifications:

• Completed JSE Compliance Officer and related Exams required for Compliance Officer registration in the Equity, Equity Derivative and Fixed Income Markets.
• FAIS RE1 exam and 2 years of FAIS compliance experience under supervision.
• Degree educated or equivalent preferred.

Competencies:

• Sound judgement and ability to work under pressure
• Ability to build productive relationships with and influence key internal and external stakeholders

Should the Business Head and HR deem there to be high potential candidates who do not fully meet the inherent requirements of the role the candidate may be considered for the position, provided they have certain skills and experience which are closely related to the role. In the exceptional cases where we hire a more junior candidate, HR may require to bring in the candidate at the appropriate grade than the one advertised to maintain internal equity. In these cases the Business and HR will work together to determine a formal developments plan for the candidate to get them up to the appropriate grade.

Exceptional candidates who do not meet these criteria may be considered for the role provided they have the necessary skills and experience.

 Valuing Diversity:

Demonstrates an appreciation of a diverse workforce. Appreciates differences in style or perspective and uses differences to add value to decisions or actions and organisational success.