Senior Treasury Assistant - Liquidity Management and Correspondent Banking Relations at African Development Bank - AfDB

The Complex

• The Vice Presidency for Finance 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 / Divison

• 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.

The Position

• Under the supervision of the Principal Treasury Officer, the Senior Treasury Assistant handles and develops post settlement activities by ensuring the timely reconciliation of items on the general ledger, monitoring of the cash balances and banking relationships, processing accurate resolution of investigations of all Bank Group financial transactions in respect of foreign exchange.

This includes:

• Identify the source of all credits received in the accounts, conduct reconciliation of assigned current accounts and maintain the Bank Group's cash book for assigned accounts.
• Ensure that surplus funds are invested, balances are maintained at a minimum, monitor correspondent banks operations and process the opening of current and special accounts and identify accounts that are dormant and make recommendations for their closure.
• Manage investigations related to the Foreign Exchange.
• Manage assigned call and current accounts.

Key Functions
The Senior Treasury Assistant will:

Manage The Foreign Exchange (FX) Investigations:

• Check detail settlement of transactions with entries on various bank accounts;
• Contact foreign exchange or current account correspondents;
• Follow up investigations until finally resolved. Lodge interest claims with counterparts for late     receipt of FX transaction funds;
• Settle counterparts interest claims on African Development Bank for late covering of FX transactions;
• Prepare monthly foreign exchange settlements failure and investigations reports;
• Maintain accurate filing for all FXs.

Process the opening of current accounts upon the approval of Treasurer:

• Request via SWIFT message, for terms and conditions for the operation of the account from corresponded banks, analyze and rank terms and conditions received based on which bank is selected. Advise Financial Control Department when account is opened;
• Process the closure of accounts upon the approval of the Treasurer. Follow up with
• Correspondent bank until account is closed and advice Financial Control Department. Update master list of Bank Group accounts and list of correspondent banks.
• Identify accounts that are dormant and make recommendations to supervisor on the closure of the accounts.

Manage assigned call and current accounts:

• Ensure there are no idle funds and accounts are not overdrawn;
• Identify and post all transactions in SAP and GTMATCH;
• Ensure all entries in cashflow are duly paid or / and received, and any discrepancy is reported to Back-office;
• Advise relevant department on receipt of funds;
• Effectively reconcile cash amounts;
• Investigate all difference between balance in list of account statement in SAP (FF67) and the General Ledger.

Manage and reconcile Bank Accounts:

• Review and process daily SWIT messages received in respect of financial transactions executed on the 260 accounts in multiple currencies maintained by the Bank Group.
• Down load and review settings for the file containing SWIFT bank statements and upon completion of the review, upload the file into SAP for automatic generation of general ledger entries.
• Monitor General Ledger entries to ensure the entries posted on daily basis impact tile right accounts. Give special attention to charges and interest debited from the accounts.

Monitor all movements in the Bank Group accounts daily by:

• Verify the accuracy of each outgoing transaction to ensure accuracy of account number, amount, value date and details of the payment and identify and classify transactions by their types; e.g. maturing investments, loan repayments, encashment of notes, management fees, swap transactions, subscriptions, income on current account, foreign exchange, call/sweep/FB/repo transactions, salaries and admin expenses etc.
• Input all transaction details for entries posted from tile Bank statement into SAP, generate accounting entries in SAP to clear loan repayments, returned disbursements and call investments operations on the current accounts.
• Input, manually in SAP statements received from banks that are not on SWIFT.
• Prepare monthly General Ledger balances report and verify the accuracy of the bank statement balances based on this report.

Prepare SWIFT messages to correspondent banks to:

• Transfer of funds from one account to another as the need arises.
• Investigate unidentified or unexecuted transactions and update investigations log.
• Follow up on the opening and closing of accounts as the need arises.

Monitor the SUMMIT Cash flow for the Bank Group portfolios:

• Prepare working tables to Investment Division for funds to be invested or to be re-called for disbursements, debt services, management fees, salaries and other administrative expenses and to Loan Disbursement Division, FX desk for funds to be sold/purchased and advise Financial Control Department and Capital Markets and Financial Operations Division and other relevant divisions on unidentified transactions.
• Ensure adequacy of funds to cover expected outflows and invest excess funds are invested timely.
• Process cash management transactions in SUMMIT (deal payments) and generate corresponding SWIFT payment instructions.
• Sort out, classify and file 50 plus bank accounts statements, confirmations and advises received by mail and facsimile from correspondent banks.
• Prepare monthly activity report of all transactions processed in the section.
• Provide information on queries concerning current account and payment transactions to Financial Control Department and other divisions of Treasury and the Bank.
• Send SWIFT copies of credit advices by e-mail to departments and divisions concerned upon receipt of funds in respect of tier portfolios
• Reconcile all payments made with the Bank's corporate card during missions with Financial Control Department.
• Provide bank details to staff for reimbursement of loans, mission advances or others. Monitor the inflow of these funds to ensure that necessary accounting entries are posted upon receipt.
• Maintain and update the Master list of all accounts held by the Bank Group including details of bank name, address, account number, General Ledger number, and contact person. Ensure that this list is updated whenever accounts are closed or opened.
• Prepare yearly report of opened and closed accounts for use by Treasury Department management, Financial Control Department and External Auditors.
• Assist Financial Control Department with the identification and reconciliation of unidentified transactions.
• Perform any other duties as may be assigned.

Competencies (Skills, Experience and Knowledge)

• Hold at least a Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting or other related discipline.
• Have a minimum of six (6) years of relevant practical working experience and experience in accounting, treasury or finance is an advantage.
• Having private sector experience will be an added advantage.
• Analytical skills.
• Demonstrable understanding of treasury and accounting transactions.
• Client orientation.
• Team working and relationships.
• Communication.
• Problem solving.
• Competence in the use of Bank standards software (Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint).
• Knowledge of SAP, SUMMIT and other financial IT systems is an added advantage.
• Ability to communicate and write effectively in French or English, preferably with a working knowledge of the other language.