M-Pesa Africa: Legal Counsel at Safaricom Kenya

DESCRIPTION

We are pleased to announce the subject career opportunity within M-Pesa Africa reporting to the MD - Mpesa Africa / Finance Director- Mpesa Africa with a dotted line reporting to HOD Legal & Secretarial Services – Safaricom.

Role Description

• To act as Business Partner to the Mpesa Africa Group and be the key legal interface into the Mpesa Markets where required and other key stakeholders across the group
• To provide skilled and specialized professional legal services, with an emphasis on contractual drafting, negotiation and review, legal research, legislative watch, and regulatory support on an ongoing basis.
• To provide specified departments/units within the Mpesa Africa and across the Mpesa markets where required skilled and specialized professional legal services.

Key Role Responsibilities

• Negotiating & gaining the buy-in of NEW customer contract including but not limited to agent, merchant, utility, Business-to-Business, Business-to-Customer, and International money transfer (IMT) contracts and any new functionality as may be added from time to time.
• Ensuring suitability & updating existing customer contract templates e.g. consumer T&Cs, Agent agreements, B2C and C2B contracts, etc. in line with changing or evolving features and functionalities of the M-PESA Service.
• Design and implement in conjunction with Risk Management, clear pre-contractual vetting processes for potential M-PESA Africa partnerships.
• Implementation of changing Risk Control measures recommended for the M-PESA Africa Business, through enforcement of contracts. This is to be done in conjunction with the Risk Management Division.
• Where required liaise with Vodafone & Vodacom Group dedicated legal resource on delivery of joint targets in relation to the legal relationship between Safaricom and Vodafone on M-PESA related matters e.g. Trademark matters, M-PESA managed service agreements, IMT (international money transfer) agreements.
• Participate and actively contribute to stakeholder review sessions on legislative issues materially affecting Financial Services, such Anti- Money Laundering, Electronic Financial Services, and Communications etc.
• Regulatory engagement: liaise with relevant regulators to ensure Safaricom remains responsive to regulatory concerns; ensure Safaricom earns/maintains the trust of financial service regulators; participate in the policy formulation and regulatory drafting process;
• Ensure timely submission of monthly and ad hoc reports as may be requested.
• Dispute management for litigation matters that arise from M-PESA contracts.
• All reporting related to the role
• Assist in negotiating renewal terms for facilities obtained from our lenders;
• Liaise with Finance to resolve issues as they arise;
• Provide general legal advice to Finance on a case-by-case basis.

QUALIFICATIONS

Apply if you have:

• Degree in Law from a reputable commonwealth university with minimum 2nd class honors (or equivalent) and completion of Diploma of the Kenya School of Law;
• An advocate of the high court of Kenya of at least 5 years standing;
• Other post-graduate diplomas or certificate courses suitable for the role in legal matters such as arbitration/mediation & negotiation skills, AML, IP, Legislative Processes/Drafting, etc.
• 3 years practical/demonstrable experience in commercial law, company law, and financial services law.
• Excellent working knowledge of telecommunications and IT legal and regulatory environment, e-commerce/m-commerce.
• Good knowledge of civil and criminal procedure codes

We are happy if you have:

• Experience in engaging regulatory bodies
• Experience of working within a multi-national team and serving customers from multiple countries would be of benefit.
• Experience of working in an agile environment will be beneficial

What you can expect from us:

• We believe in a fair and robust interview process
• We have a robust flexible total reward scheme
• Dedicated support and mentoring/coaching
• Opportunity to develop and progress – plus a solid dedication to work-life integration. It all means you’ll have everything you need to advance your career and achieve your full potential.