Head, Regulatory Affairs - Absa Bank

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

• To lead the Compliance Regulatory Affairs team and provide strategic direction and focus.
• Serve as the subject matter expert for the Bank on all regulatory matters.
• Responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the bank’s legal and regulatory framework, to address all elements which fall under the scope. Including full responsibility for all the key activities of the unit including:
• Management of local regulatory relationships;
• Interpretation and embedment of regulations/directives and statutes;
• Undertaking, monitoring and tracking regulatory commitments, projects, registrations, approvals and license renewals;
• Creating awareness for regulatory requirements and assisting businesses to implement requirements; and
• Managing and supervising regulatory audits/on-site visits
• Ownership and full responsibility for compliance with and adherence to Group policies and standards that impact on regulatory matters including the Contact with Regulator policy and the New Regulatory Requirement policy.
• To ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place and embedded to meet Group and local regulatory requirements.
• To support due diligence investigations of potential acquisitions.
• To provide business partnering support, advice and guidance in respect of all regulatory considerations impacting on regulatory approval requests, products developments and rollouts, business activities and initiatives.

Job Description

Accountability: Regulatory Compliance (60%)

Responsibility for regulatory engagements including:

• Effectively managing local regulatory engagements and relationship(s);
• Managing and supervising regulatory audits/on-site visits;
• Monitoring and tracking of regulatory commitments projects to ensure submission and completion prior to regulator’s deadlines;
• Maintaining a log of all prescribed local regulatory commitments and follow–up with business areas to ensure compliance;
• Undertaking registrations, approvals and license renewals ;
• Monitoring and tracking of all existing registrations and licenses to ensure renewals are done prior to expiration;
• Advising, guiding and supporting Businesses with regulatory approval requests and ensuring regulatory approval is obtained in a timely manner;
• Managing all Complaints received from regulators; and
• Ensuring adherence to the Contact with Regulator policy and ensuring all internal and regulatory databases, logs and platforms are up to date and accurate.

Responsibility for changes in the regulatory environment including:

• Maintaining an up-to-date regulatory universe and ensuring that RMPs are done for all key regulatory laws and directives;
• Proactive identification of new /amended laws, regulations, and directives that affects the Bank’s operations.
• Liaising with the Legal team to ensure gap analysis on all new and amended laws, regulations, and directives that affects the Bank’s operations are done in line with the NRR policy
• Embedding changes as identified by the gap analysis into business processes.
• Developing / updating Risk Management Plans for new legislations / directives
• Undertaking the interpretation and embedment of regulations/directives and statutes;
• Creating awareness for new and existing regulatory requirements through training, comms and supporting the business to implement requirements;
• Ensuring adherence to the New Regulatory Requirements policy and ensuring all internal and regulatory databases, logs and platforms are up to date and accurate.
• Responsibility for the NRR Steerco and Regulatory Steer.

Responsibility for regulatory reporting including:

• Maintenance of the Bank’s regulatory reporting schedule
• Supporting the Compliance Director to keep the local management team and other Executives informed on regulatory and compliance matters which may pose financial or reputational risks for the business.
• Providing Regulatory Compliance updates for ARO, Board and Management reports.

Accountability: Business Partnering and risk management (15%)

• Deliver an appropriate review mechanism to assess regulatory risk before it is assumed.
• Provide clear, accurate and timely valued advice and guidance to businesses, for advice on regulatory requirements and all regulatory-related issues thereby providing a superior service which protects and enhances the reputation of the Compliance Function
• Enhance and promote a compliance culture through awareness activities
• Participate in the product initiation process to ensure compliance with local regulatory requirements and the application of legislative requirements to the review, approval and rollout of new products
• Monitor the implementation and compliance with regulatory examination recommendations.
• Identify business impact and risks in respect of regulatory requirements escalate upward as necessary and support the business to manage and mitigate all associated risks.
• Advise appropriately on compliance issues and escalate issues and breaches identified in an appropriate manner to the line manager
• Communicate regulatory issues/concerns with internal stakeholders and line management
• Ensure that the business addresses concerns raised by the Regulator /deliver on commitments made to the Regulator
• Establish and implement a consistent operating framework for the identification, management, monitoring and reporting of country Compliance regulatory risks and issues.

Accountability: Policies and procedures (15 %)

• Ownership and full responsibility for compliance with and adherence to Group policies and standards that impact on regulatory matters including the Contact with Regulator policy and the New Regulatory Requirement policy.
• Ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place and embedded to meet Group and local regulatory requirements.
• Ensure the development, localisation and roll-out of Compliance policies and standards.
• Provide support, guidance and advice in the implementation and interpretation and application of Compliance policies and processes in the business.

Accountability: Stakeholder management and People Management (10%)

• People Management's responsibility for the Regulatory Affairs Officer includes setting challenging and stretching objectives and ensuring effective performance management, and development.
• Act as a role model and drive the proactive application of Absa Values throughout the team including the establishment of common goals and objectives.
• Support to make the team/office a fun place to work, support others to make a success of the team and function and encourages collaborative working.
• Work on the team and Function-wide initiatives to make Absa a better place.
• Get involved in projects in the team and across the function to share knowledge and learn new skills alongside Continuous Personal Development (CPD).
• Establish and maintain effective stakeholder relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Establish close working relationships with business and other business heads to ensure support for the Compliance framework.

Education

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