Settlement Specialist (Corp Banking)

We are recruiting for a Settlement Specialist (Corp Banking) for a 6 month contract at a leading Bank in Johannesburg. 

Job purpose description

The core purpose of the role is to provide end-to-end electronic and physical settlement services for various types of financial instruments, manage the associated risks of processing in a highly pressurized environment, control all aspects relating to operational regulatory requirements, and in the process ensure that agreed service levels are maintained for both domestic and international institutional clients.

Duties 

Action, manage and control all aspects relating to Settlements in accordance with the Market rules and directives outlined in the South African Securities Market and clients’ Safe Custody and Service Level Agreements.

Outputs and measures

Ensure awareness of clients’ needs at all times and that these needs are always met as stipulated in the Safe Custody Agreements (SCA).

• Action all instructions relating to settlements
• Manage and control all risks within the settlements environment
• Adherence to all regulatory requirements
• To obtain a full understanding of market rules and directives, hence ensuring procedures and cut off times are adhered to on the day to day processing of trades

Output group 

Action and control all aspects relating to Strate and Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

• Ensure the adherence of all Strate Rules and Directive
• Liaise with internal Helpdesk to ensure the opening of corrective windows
• Escalation of settlement delays when close to cut-off times
• Escalation of any delay in Swift message flows between Standard Bank and Strate

Ensure client communication is of a high standard, both verbally and in writing

• Follow-up and follow-through on all outstanding issues, Customer queries or Internal queries and ensure adequate written and verbal communication at all times
• Transmit ideas, information and instructions to individuals and groups clearly and concisely, both verbally and in writing.

Ensure the adherence to procedures at all times

Perform daily checks on rejected messages, cancellation order queue, repair queue, reprocessed screen, settlement allegements screen, folder for unmatched trades,

• Ensure that relevant Message type 548 status intimation messages are generated to clients and broker and ensure immediate and appropriate action is taken to resolve.
• Ensure all reports from Helpdesk are actioned as per laid down procedures.
• Report all off market trades, within the market cut off time, as and when required.
• Perform regular follow ups on all exceptions to ensure that all trades are in a correct status as at end of day.
• Follow-up and follow-through on all outstanding issues in the form of client or internal queries and ensure adequate written and verbal communication at all times
• Ensure that fax instructions are verified against authorized signatory lists and that the correct client is the instructing party for the relevant accounts.
• Adhere to market rules and directives and in the process eliminating possible penalties being levied against the Bank.
• Manage and control all areas of risks as identified and ensure that proper controls are in place to ensure a zero losses or penalties environment.
• Display a sense of urgency and thorough planning, prioritization in order to meet all deadlines.
• Ensure all manual controls are followed and adhere to eliminate and minimize the risk exposure when managing manual processing.
• Ensure the provision of a high quality and cost effective service to both internal and external clients by accurately analyzing the clients’ needs and market demands in order to define business requirements.
• Building and retaining effective relationships with clients through participating in regular courtesy calls.
• Continuously improve service offerings through innovation, and a future orientation towards automation.
• Ensure that a competitive edge within the market is maintained through building, maintaining and retaining client partnerships

Display the ability in identifying risk areas, and suggest adequate controls where necessary. Initiate training and attend all scheduled training workshops. Apply and share knowledge.

• Identify areas of risk and work with Manager to ensure that proper controls are in place to eliminate or minimize risks and losses
• Provide input to procedure or risk documents for example the “Risk Management Framework and process flows documents.”
• Attend all workshops and share knowledge during training hours in order to create the awareness of any risks that were identified

Ensure continuous follow ups, checks and monitoring of exceptions.

• Ensure that all reports are actioned as per laid down procedures.
• Ensure that all issues related to accounts have been raised and resolved timeously.
• Check on the response times to queries
• Ensure that all outstanding issues are prioritized and escalated accordingly for example: queries, possible claims, outstanding penalties and fines.
• Report substantial increase or decrease of volumes to Manager
• Liaise regularly with other sections to ensure that sections work is integrated smoothly with the rest of the department. Attend all workshops and share knowledge during training hours.
• Ensure that all system problems are escalated to Query Management Business Support area and follow up on resolutions to ensure that, queries are not left unattended
• Conduct ongoing trend analysis with regards to penalties and continuously communicate improvements or deteriorations. Highlight such findings to management for further action.
• Action ‘call- reports’ based on courtesy calls, global custody survey results or client profiles by providing feedback or input, and follow up on action plans.

Ensure that all procedures, processes, working instructions are up to date and relevant.

• To assist manager in achieving the division’s goals by ensuring that a cost effective, high quality service is provided to our customers, by effectively controlling tasks within the settlements section.
• To identify areas of risk and ensure that proper controls are in place to eliminate / minimize risks and losses.
• Ensure that Knowledge sharing about the business is communicated to team members, in order to improve and maintain client service.
• Take action in educating clients about processes, procedures as well as both internal and market timelines, in order to improve processing of instructions in a timely manner.
• Ensure ongoing training on other portfolios and obtain adequate knowledge in order to perform optimally as a back-up to other accounts. This to ensure risks is minimized in the department.
• To obtain a full understanding of market rules and directives, hence ensuring procedures and cut off times are adhered to on the day to day processing of trades.
• Effectively communicate to clients both verbally and in writing in relation to the running of the business.
• Display teamwork and live by the Standard Bank Values.

Qualification 

1. National Certification in Business Commerce 
2. Sate Compliance Exams