Senior Specialist Credit and Debt Review

Industry: Finance / Job Expires: 2024-03-15 00:00:00 / Location: Gauteng

Purpose

The primary objective of this role is to promote a regulatory environment that will enable the banks to continue to provide competitive, sustainable, and customer-centric financial services and products.

Minimum requirements

• Bachelor's degree, in Legal, Business, Finance, Market conduct, Credit or Debt review related field.
• Minimum of 5 years' relevant experience.
• In-depth knowledge of NCA and legal and practical knowledge concerning credit management and debt review.
• Business user experience from an SDLC perspective regarding functional requirements, UAT, training, support, investigations, data verification and validations for data submissions.
• Experience working with the DCRS industry system or similar system would be advantageous.
• Leadership and project management skills.

Main duties: 

1. Credit and debt review oversight

• Enable the company to be the “Voice of the Industry” of the sector through formulation of positions on critical regulatory and supervisory issues.
• Identifying regulation (for credit / debt review) that requires comment/engagement.
• Collecting, compiling, reviewing and agreeing members’ comments for submissions to stakeholders.
• Drafting of position papers/submissions to send to stakeholders.
• Preparing materials and topics of interest to members across various committees/subcommittees/task groups/work groups. Please note that this can also include external stakeholders such as non-bank credit providers.
• Managing of submissions and supporting documentation, maintenance of submission archives, including documents and tracking of changes, and coordination of tasks mainly within credit and debt review, but this can also be across internal the company divisions.

2. Proactively identify and drive initiatives affecting the sector and specifically the credit / debt review frameworks

• Drive projects efficiently and effectively by adhering to defined performance objectives and agreed processes.
• Attend to certain administration aspects as applicable to the job description/role, for example, drafting emails in relation to meetings, reviewing minutes, agreeing action items from minutes for the committee members and providing input into forthcoming meeting agendas or answering queries and phone calls from stakeholders.

3. Industry system

• Providing input to the industry committees on all industry system related issues and decision making.
• Responding to support calls from the industry system support desk and investigation of user reported business issues with the industry system support desk.
• Providing input into feasibility studies for the system rule changes for industry system.
• Be involved in business user related discussions and decision making. Establishing functional requirements with a variety of stakeholders, including the system developer.
• Creating test scenarios for user acceptance testing (UAT), assisting both the system project manager and the industry system support desk.
• Providing experienced insight into the industry system from a business perspective and providing design input to the industry system for change requests.
• Development of industry system training materials and manuals and providing industry system training for stakeholders, for example, the debt review business process.
• Be responsible for UAT of the industry system, prior to deployment and for the business signoff on implementations and user testing.
• Involvement in the project planning for the industry system from a business perspective.

4. Stakeholder facilitation

• Facilitate and chair workshops and meetings with stakeholders to gather input and discuss submissions / requirements from members.
• Create a collaborative environment to encourage effective communication and decision-making.
• Guide stakeholders through discussions, ensuring their perspectives are heard and addressed.
• Drive consensus and/or agree majority / minority views at industry level.
• Document workshop outcomes and action items / parking lot items for follow-up.
• Management and resolution of action items / parking lot items.

5. Stakeholder management

• Engage with high-profile stakeholders, including the executive board, board members, directors from other institutions and industry leaders, as and when required or requested to do so by the project/programme manager or alternate.
• Dealing with external parties to address industry system data requirements, e.g., National Credit Regulator and National Consumer Tribunal etc.
• Attending all industry system project meetings as the company business representative and maintaining a holistic view of the changes and progress in terms of the industry system at all times.

6. Building and maintaining relationships with relevant local and global stakeholders for mutual benefit and presenting the sector’s views/opinions with various stakeholders such as:

• Associations and external suppliers.
• Credit Industry Forum (CIF).
• Non-bank credit providers, part of the National Industry Steering Committee (NISC).
• Ministerial departments, Parliament, and regulators.

7. Provide end-user training on the industry system

• External stakeholders (e.g., NCR and NCT).
• Credit Industry Forum (CIF).
• Non-bank NISC members.
• Represent the company at conferences, seminars, and meetings to promote its brand locally and globally.

8. Governance and credit and debt review portfolio

• Implementing the agreed  strategy.
• Ensuring programme and project activities adhere to relevant regulations and legal frameworks.
• Keeping informed on applicable legislation, industry developments and internal procedures for credit / debt review, including the regular review of new and existing legislation, attendance of workshops, webinars, and training, etc.
• Collaborating with internal committees to address any regulatory or legal issues.
• Attending to NCA, debt review and other related credit regulatory aspects of transactions and projects when required as well as litigation, including the briefing and management of external lawyers and the negotiation of agreements.
• Identifying opportunities for process improvement.

9. Thought leadership

• Develop and implement an effective advocacy strategy to ensure that regulatory issues favour the sector.
• Collaborate and build consensus with members on a continuous basis to arrive at positions achieving agreed objectives.
• Strategically achieve and maintain a balance between regulatory concerns, timeously addressing concerns with regulators, technology, compliance, and costs.
• Create and / or enhance service offerings for the company to deliver continuous value to its members.
• Conduct relevant research and analyse industry trends when required.
• Demonstrate the ability to forecast and anticipate future trends.

10. Organisational support

• Participate in, create, and promote a collaborative, learning and performance-oriented culture.
• Assist the project/programme manager or alternate with identified projects and outputs.
• Lead and mentor junior staff.
• Collaborate with cross-functional, cross-divisional teams, and fellow team members.

Key competencies

• Proven experience in workshop facilitation, and NCA, debt review and other credit related regulation.
• Familiarity with debt review practices and processes in the credit industry and the skill to create business processes and procedures is required. 
• Compiling user manuals to conduct user training on IT system solutions is required. Familiarity with the system development life cycle from a business user perspective, including functional requirements, user acceptance testing and end-user problem resolution in terms of a support role for end-users is required.
• Familiarity with debt counselling rules system, National Credit Regulator Circulars and Guidelines.  
• Validation, verification and checking of exceptions for data / reports submitted.

Location: Gauteng

N.B: By responding to this advert, you consent to Heitha Staffing Group processing your personal information for recruitment purposes and confirm that any personal information has been submitted voluntarily. Applicants will be requested to fill in and sign a POPI Act Consent Form.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you have not heard from us in 4 weeks, consider your application unsuccessful.

To apply please send your CV to Refilwe@heitha.co.za