(450) Financial Markets Specialist - FMD at South African Reserve Bank

Detailed description

The successful candidate will be responsible for the following key performance areas:

• Prepare design proposals on monetary policy tools and frameworks, and analyse the impact of implementation.
• Write and present reports on research and analysis conducted on market operations and investments. 
• Manage bespoke elements of committee administration as requested by assuming the role of secretary or co-secretary of internal and/or external committees on a rotational or permanent basis. 
• Implement monetary policy by monitoring the market, providing input into the trading strategy, conducting transactions such as auctions for purposes of liquidity management and also on behalf of government (bond auctions and Treasury Bill auctions), and capturing trades such as CPD assets and financial markets transactions for liquidity management. 
• Undertake investments for the CPD in accordance with investment guidelines, operational requirements, and policies and legislation.
• Supervise the transactions of junior Financial Market Specialists.
• Contribute to the analysis of existing reference rates and the design of new rates where necessary, and contribute to the design of governance frameworks that relate to the code of conduct on benchmark rates.
• Provide oversight on the market commentary prepared by junior Financial Market Specialists.
• Coordinate, consolidate and finalise regular market analysis reports (e.g. financial market daily) without quality assurance by a more senior Financial Market Specialist.
• Draft rules relating to the oversight of market functioning and structure, including the code of conduct.
• Look for opportunities to automate routine tasks by leveraging innovative programming languages (e.g. Python), and encourage and assist junior specialists to continually innovate and improve their work processes.
• Conduct comprehensive research for special projects by applying a robust and structured research methodology.
• Stay abreast of all methodological developments relevant to own disciplines that affect the collection and development of time series and market research, trade execution and investment management process as well as operations, and apply this in own research.
• Analyse how these changes impact current methodologies and make proposals on how current methodologies should be adjusted to accommodate these changes.
• Assess what is required from current work, and then make specific changes to systems or own work methods in order to improve the standard of current work being done.
• Review, update and improve database structures on a regular basis to ensure all data are properly captured, and aggregate time series and cross-section data are calculated accurately.
• Prepare and make convincing presentations to own team on a regular basis as well as to departmental forums and other departments of the SARB.
• Assist with the preparation of briefings, speeches and presentations for senior management forums in the SARB as well as external forums.
• Contextualise presentations for a particular audience, with the ability to respond effectively to questions that may be posed by the audience.
• Support on-the-job training for junior Financial Market Specialists, which may be in the form of workshops or internal forums on research conducted.

QUALIFICATIONS

Job requirements 

To be considered for this position, candidates must be in possession of:

• an Honours degree (NQF8) in Economics, Accounting, Actuarial Science, Financial Engineering, Mathematics of Finance, Finance or an equivalent combination of education in the required field and job-related experience; and
• five to eight years’ experience in the financial markets environment.

The following will be an added advantage:

• Master’s degree in the above disciplines, Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) qualification, and knowledge and skills in money market operations, financial mathematics, domestic and international interest rates, bond markets, interest rate products, market intelligence, the investment industry, money market fund management, research methodologies, Reuters, Bloomberg, management of stakeholder relationships, project management, and relevant policies and procedures.

Additional requirements include:

• proficiency in the Microsoft (MS) Office suite, with expert knowledge of MS Excel;
• advanced mathematical and statistical modelling;
• advanced programming skills (VBA, MATLAB or other languages that can be used in implementing models);
• excellent interpersonal as well as verbal and written communication skills;
• report writing skills;
• research methodology skills;
• planning and organising skills;
• decision-making skills;
• presentation skills;
• being a team player; and
• integrity.