Head of Transactional Banking - 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.

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Job Summary

Provide directional payment advisory capability to inform and facilitate medium to long-term strategy development, execution and management.

Payment Strategy Formulation: Prepare and communicate the Payment Reg / Interbank modernization strategy with appropriate alignment to SARB Vision 2025 and strategic industry goals and identified initiatives.

Provide Strategic Leadership: Stay abreast of industry trends and role players and ensure that Absa is well-positioned to provide competitive and industry-leading services

Performance reporting: Drive strategic reporting requirements

Strategy execution: Group / Cluster Stakeholder Management – Proactively manage the working relationship with the business heads who have a vested interest in the modernization, optimisation, growth and decommissioning of Absa payments

People management: Fulfil all aspects of people management

Accountable for the development of an agreed Absa Group Payments Strategy; articulating a set of supporting Payments Stream Principles and ensuring the maintenance thereof – aimed at protecting and enhancing the value of the Group Payments Franchise and our banking license.

Job Description

Accountability: Payments Strategy Formulation and Maintenance

• Develop an overarching Group Payments Strategy aimed at protecting and enhancing the value of the Group Payments Franchise, through the provision of a clear Payments direction (including vision, strategic objectives, set of enabling business imperatives and supporting measures and metrics)
• Have a good understanding of global payments trends, opportunities and risks and how Absa Group should respond to these for example the Dis-intermediation map and relevant mitigation strategies (i.e. contest, embrace, partner, ignore).
• Understand and support the overall Absa Group Strategy by ensuring that relevant payments aspects are considered in the development of supporting business/operating models and using investment prioritisation as strategic enabler.
• Drive the strategic integration and alignment with Barclays Global Payments functions and other payments stakeholders in the local and international context 2 (i.e. Card Associations, Bankserv, Regulatory and oversight bodies, Banking Council).
• Develop a set of non-negotiable principles supporting the agreed Group Payments Strategy to ensure adherence and alignment to the overall strategic intent and which will facilitate resultant business trade-offs of a non-interest revenue nature.
• Participate in Group, Cluster and SBU strategic planning process to ensure that the payments aspects of the Customer Value proposition is adequately catered for and inculcated in the strategies/business plans.
• Manage the relationship with internal stakeholders such as business heads and CEOs who have a vested interest in the optimisation and growth of the Payments
• Set up and facilitate the strategic payments and performance agenda with Exco.
• Ensure that Payments Innovation remains top of mind and apply it as an enabler for the chosen strategic objectives and that accountable Payments Domains (i.e Card, Account and Channel) along with Payments Operations and IT move towards best practice solutions.

Accountability: Strategy Execution – stakeholder management & align

• Proactively manage the working relationship with the business heads and CEO who have a vested interest in the optimisation and growth of the Payments Function.
• Proactively develop relationships with key industry stakeholders including Bankserv, Card Associations/Schemes, and PASA (Payments Association of South Africa), and 3rd party payment services providers.
• Constitute and manage appropriate Payments forums within Absa, with the required mandate and membership.
• Position Absa Payments Franchise as a Group competitive advantage, whilst gaining a reputation for thought leadership in the industry.
• Work closely with Payments Domain custodians (i.e. Account, Card, Collections and Channel domains) and Payments Operations to ensure the effective operationalization of the Group Payments Strategy and facilitate trade-offs.
• Support the business heads of Absa in idea generation, overall definition and strategy formulation of the footprint of Absa Payments.
• Ensure that the Payments Franchise (Relevant Non Interest Revenue line items) are adequately represented and stretched as part of the Medium Term Planning (MTP) process by accountable Payments Domains – i.e. ensure optimal payments penetration of retail, commercial and corporate customer base.
• Inculcate the notional Payments P&L into the top-down and bottom-up MTP and STP (Short Term Planning) processes.

Accountability: Influencing Absa Group Strategy & Planning

• Ensure that Group Payments remains a core line item on the Absa Group Strategy agenda and is inculcated into the strategic management process (Deep Dive Process and Principle Risk sign-off) by representing Group Payments at the appropriate strategy setting forums within Absa (for e.g. Group Transformation
• Socialise and propagate the Group Payments strategy to ensure that core Payments initiatives are represented on the Group Transformation Programme.
• Ensure that the business planning aspects of cross-functional payments aspects are accurately reflected in the MTP process (i.e. not over or understated).
• Ensure that the Payments capability aspects (People, Process, IT, Infrastructure) is catered for in any strategic design and operating model work.

Accountability: Payments Research and Innovation

• Create a Knowledge Management capability for Payments in the Absa Group. Set up a central database (i.e. SharePoint) to store payments-related information/project information/data etc. which could feed into (push) and be fed into (pull) by the broader Payments Community.
• Have a specialised focus on Payments Innovation (Global) with a view to putting forward the Payments Innovation “heat map” as a standard agenda point on the Payments Integration Forum. Build up a close working relationship with the Bankserv Programme Office to ensure that Absa remains up to date on Global Payments matters (opportunities and threats).
• Perform all other duties as reasonably assigned.

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)