Specialist Risk Measurement: ARO Wholesale Credit at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• The Specialist Risk Measurement Unit role is accountable to assist in managing the end to end Impairments reporting process, including oversight of the monthly Impairments Governance Forum and accurate reporting of impairments across Absa Regional operations (ARO) Wholesale Credit.
• Manage the development and continuous enhancement of impairment and credit models monitoring, reviews and analysis within Absa Regional operations (ARO) Wholesale Credit by playing a role in the entire analytics process from implementation to the governance lifecycle. Provide mentorship and senior advisory to junior analysts within the Credit Risk Measurement team.

Job Description

Key Accountabilities

Accountability: Impairments (30%)

• Support Impairments Governance Forum across ARO WHOLESALE CREDIT that includes relevant and accurate reporting
• Support ARO Wholesale Credit Risk, ARO Wholesale Credit Finance and Business stakeholders by communicating final impairment numbers on a monthly basis and answers/resolve impairment related queries.

Assist in Planning, co-ordinate and prioritise projects/initiatives within the environment  and  ensure regular feedback to stakeholders as well as status of projects are communicated.

• Ensure compliance to prescribed policy by liaising with policy team.
• Explain methodologies to Internal Audit and different Business Units.
• Assist Chief Credit Officer for BAGL in his oversight responsibilities through co-ordinating aggregated reporting to the extent requested to do so.
• Ensure  an  aligned  approach  (where  appropriate)  with  other  impairment  areas  through holding update meetings with the relevant heads.
• Generate  timely  and  accurate  impairment  reporting  (assisting  with  the  provision  of ARO Wholesale credit data), attending to impairment queries as and when they arise.

Accountability: Stress testing (ad hoc and annual business as usual), as well as providing assistance in relation to specialised analytics to the extent requested by stakeholders (25%)

• Liaise with the Stress Testing modelling team in an advisory capacity to ensure appropriate use of data and models to arrive at output that is suitable for intended purposes and is in line with expert judgement.
• As part of the budgeting process, assist with the compilation of base impairment forecasts, as well as stress tested figures, present such figures to sign off authorities and address any queries that may arise during the process.
• Assist with ad hoc stress testing exercises as these may be requested through the year.

Accountability: Methodology and Projects (30%)

• If  requested,  act  as  a  liaison  between  credit  and  the  modelling  team  in  relation  to methodology  questions/  understanding requirements that  may  from  time  to  time  arise (particularly in relation to the UI, IFRS 9 and stress testing models).
• If requested, participate/ drive (as may be appropriate) Credit related projects. Manage Ad- hoc queries from Credit, Finance and Business.

Accountability: Relationship & Stakeholder Management (20%)

• Liaise and engage with various internal Stakeholders (e.g. Credit Exco, REST OF AFRICA WHOLESALE CREDIT Finance, TAG & Wholesale Credit Management) to secure their respective support in the implementation of impairment strategies and also ensuring capacity exists to implement.
• Secure support from Modelling Team, MI, CRAG, Business & Finance teams to deliver accurate and robust MI and Impairments (analysis and figures).
• Review and report strategy performance and trends to the PRC committees and Wholesale

Impairment Governance Forum. This entails presenting to the applicable forums.

Accountability: Governance & Compliance (10%)

• Test and audit the  model output, MI and processes and provide reports to governance committees to ensure that ARO WHOLESALE CREDIT activities and policies are compliant with the ABSA policies.
• Ensure that there is compliance with all internal policies and procedures in the team and provide coaching and feedback on how to improve compliance through the  continuous review of ARO WHOLESALE CREDIT activities/strategies.

Education

• Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Accounting, Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Actuarial Science, Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Banking, Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Mathematics, Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Risk Management and Financial Risk Management