Senior Treasury Assistant at African Development Bank - AfDB

The Complex

• The Vice Presidency for Finance (FIVP) oversees the financial management of the Bank Group. This encompasses the Bank Group’s treasury activities including borrowings from the capital markets and investment activities; controllership functions including financial reporting and loan administration; strategic resource mobilization and the strengthening of the non-statutory financial resources and instruments; the overall asset/liability management for the Bank Group.

The Hiring Department/Division

• The Treasury department is responsible for raising funds from capital markets, managing and investing the Bank Group’s liquidity and shareholders’ funds, processing and settlement of all financial transactions and managing the institution’s banking relationships.
• Under the supervision of the Manager Treasury Operations Division (FITR.2) the Capital Market Operations (CMO) section oversees the processing of Asset & Liability Management (ALM) transactions, the management of derivative collaterals, and the review of derivative documentations. The section also supervises the negotiations and management of all the custodian relationships, reconcile the securities accounts and monitor the processing of the corporate actions and the tax claim linked to investment instruments (Money Market, fixed income securities and  derivatives).
• The Senior Treasury Assistant’s job falls in the team of Capital Market Operations (CMO),

The Position

• The objective of the position of Senior Treasury Assistant is to settle the Bank Group's capital market transactions and to process the related investigations, with the objective of:
• Ensuring that the payment of the Bank Group financial obligations (debt service and investments), the investment of coupons and redemption on custodian A/C’s are timely processed.
• Ensuring that the Bank’s derivatives portfolio is adequately collateralized,
• Ensuring that the reconciliation exercises are performed accurately and on exhaustive manner on all interests and redemptions reported on the expected cashflow report and the courant accounts and custody accounts.
• Validating transactions details and cash-flow requirements to ensure funds availability.
• Maintaining the custodian accounts to ensure accuracy of balances
• Maintaining dialogue with counterparties and custodians banks to reduce the incidence of errors and also to ensure that terms and conditions applicable to the accounts are respected

Duties and responsibilities
The Senior Treasury Assistant will undertake the following functions:

1)  Participate in the settlement of capital market operations
Investments:

• Upon receipt of trade tickets from Front Office through Middle Office, check the accuracy of the tickets and reconcile details against the confirmation received from the counterparty.
• Verify details such as the face value, type of security, the description of the security, trade date, value date, rate, yield, counterparty, the Clearing House, and the proceeds stated on the trade ticket by the trader.
• Confirm the settlement instructions with the counterparty and assign them to the trade in Summit to generate the appropriate settlement instruction;
• Analyze each transaction and transfer the required funding to the custody bank for settlement;
• Transfer proceeds of sale of bonds to the appropriate current account to meet financial obligations.
• Reconcile confirmations issued and received related Money Market and FX deals in the reconciliation application GTMatch and investigate any mismatch with the counterparties.
• Monitor live accounts statements on Swift throughout the day to ensure good execution of settlement operations.
• Review and update periodically counterparties’ s payment details in SUMMIT;

Borrowings:

• Verify SUMMIT trade set up to facilitate cashflow generation, coupon calculation, and assign appropriate settlement instructions.
• Reconcile borrowing and derivative cashflows generate by Summit with trade ticket, term sheet, pricing supplement and confirmation
• Review bond issuances in local currencies to find if they are eligible for settlement with custodian/registrar to avoid settlement failure
• Review nonstandard coupon payment frequencies and advise supervisor, Risk Department and Capital Market team of any issues.
• Monitor call on borrowing trades and prepare required instructions to the Issuing and Paying Agent for settlement.  
• Generate payment instructions to settle debt services.
• Review and update periodically counterparties’ s payment details in Summit;

2) Assist in the Collateral Management activities

• Review and update the static data of Credit Support Annex (CSA) and Global Master Repurchase Agreement of each counterparty in the treasury applications (SUMMIT, TRIOptima…)
• Issue margin calls to derivative counterparties based on the portfolio valuations provided by the middle-office; reconcile margin calls received from counterparties and report any dispute to the middle-office for investigation.
• Agree with the counterparty on the type and amount of collateral to be exchanged and update the treasury applications in order to generate the related settlement instructions.
• Reconcile the monthly collateral balances and interest on cash collateral with the derivatives counterparties and prepare the appropriate settlement instructions;

3) Assist in the Settlement of Foreign Exchange Transactions

• Check the details on the deal slip with the details on the conversation print out from the Trader  to ensure accuracy, and perform the settlement process function in SAP for all the transactions;
• Check the rate quoted on both ticket and Reuters conversation with general level of market rate;  Generate the confirmations and notice to receive swift messages for the transactions, and post the accounting entries for the transactions;
• Generate payment orders to cover counterparts for the foreign exchange trades  Maintain accurate filing for all foreign exchange transactions

4)  Assist on investigations and reporting
Daily Coupon:

• Download from custodian systems on a daily basis, interests and redemption report.  Analyze for reconciliation purpose.
• Monitor withholding tax deduction on interest payments and ensure that waivers are processed timely and sent to custodians.
• Identify bonds that undergo partial redemption and inform both the Front and Middle Office.
• Prepare daily report of interests received to be used by the Front Office for investments.
• Manage bond certification to avoid inaccurate position and security being blocked.
• Monthly Portfolio Valuation
• Reconcile Summit securities positions report against custodian report on a monthly basis.
• Prepare monthly report of securities holdings to facilitate the location of the securities in case of sale.
• Generate periodic reports as requested by the accounting department (FIFC) in order to facilitate the bank reconciliation process.   Respond to queries from FIFC.
• Prepare a monthly analysis of non-performing counterparties.

5) Miscellaneous

• Maintain accurate filing for all transactions.
• Assist internal and external auditors by providing the requested information.

Selection Criteria

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration or similar fields.  
• A minimum of six (6) years’ of relevant practical working experience.
• Experience in accounting, treasury or finance
• Private Sector Experience an added advantage
• Knowledge and experience in capital market operations and being conversant with the full life of a trade including initiation, settlements, confirmation, payment processing especially the SWIFT.
• An understanding of operational and reputational risks
• Understanding of payment processing especially Swift messages
• Demonstrable understanding and application of accounting principles
• Strong Numerical and Analytical skills.
• Possess marketing and presentation skills to communicate with stakeholders
• Client orientation: Ability to ensure that the client is considered to be of primary importance in all transactions and interactions. Strive to understand, and when appropriate, anticipate client needs, and ensure that the client receives the best possible service from the Bank.
• Team work and relationship: Ability to work with others to maximize the effectiveness of the team as a whole, sharing the knowledge and workload. Develops strong working relationships with colleagues and contributes to creation of a positive team environment
• Problem solving: Ability to apply business knowledge to the resolution of problems and identify solutions to the benefit of the client (internal and external) and the organization.
• Good written and verbal communication in English or French and preferably, a working knowledge of the other language.
• Microsoft Office (word, excel, PowerPoint etc.). Knowledge of MISYS/SUMMIT, SAP/FI or other ERP, , SWIFT & GTMATCH.