Job Openings at Absa Bank Limited

Job Summary

To provide excellent customer experience, and deliver exceptional Islamic Banking business growth in Branch Network and profitability. To observe compliance & control requirements, keeping a high level of bank standards.

Job Description

Main accountabilities and approximate time split.

Business Growth: Time Split - 60%     

• Understand and implement Islamic Banking business strategic initiatives for the branch aimed at increasing new business and wallet share from existing customers.
• Have a clear understanding of all Retail and Business Banking Islamic Banking products that could satisfy customer needs.
• Manage portfolio risks in line with banks' portfolio appetite.
• Collaborate in the development and implementation of Islamic Banking sales initiatives with other business functions i.e. Direct sales team, Asset Finance, CIB, and Bancassurance to maximize cross-selling and better customer profiling opportunities.
• In conjunction with the branch manager, Industry heads, and products, conduct product review and development through constant feedback from the market.
• Continuously conduct market intelligence to identify new markets, customer trends, new government / directives and changes in policy by regulators.
• Contribute to the development of Islamic Banking branch sales strategy.
• Plan and coordinate any marketing approaches for new business and actively develop existing relationships.
• Actively seek to grow own portfolio and cross-sell to ensure delivery of set Targets. Appraise and promptly address customer issues /complaints escalating as necessary to ensure timely resolution as per the set standards.
• Ensure quality sales and new to-bank accounts within your portfolio are promptly funded at customer onboarding.
• Continuously monitor own performance against targets agreed on on a daily basis for new and existing clients. Initiate appropriate action plans to address any shortfalls in performance.
• Operationalize campaigns as required with the Branch Manager and the business.
• Ensure excellent customer experience at all times
• Drive business targets through strict TAT observance and high-level service delivery standards.
• Should not advise an existing customer to open a similar account in their respective branches with a view of moving funds between the accounts.
• Should not close an existing account in your Branch/domiciled in another Branch with a view to re-opening a similar account.
• Accounts re-streaming should be carried out in line with the Banks policy.
• Together with BM, create ownership of the branch performance targets. Agree on branch execution plans/strategies and ensure they are aligned to the Bank's overall strategy- Growth, Transformation, and Returns.

Internal Controls & Risk Management: Time split -10%

• Ensure that Absa bank’s policies and procedures are adhered to at all times when handling different products.
• Ensure adherence to all KYC & AML Processes with regard to new and existing business and that proper documentation is in place.
• Ensure compliance with Operations Risk requirements to avoid losses arising from operational lapses.
• Manage costs within your area of operation.
• Effectively carry out branch snap checks as assigned by the assistant branch manager.
• Ensure the new business is properly booked and all income due to the Bank in terms of charges, commissions, and fees are collected as per the current tariff.
• Accurate customer information is captured in the core banking system.

Customer Experience: Time split- 20%

• Ensure excellent customer experience is maintained at all times.
• Ensure set TAT in account onboarding and loan processing is achieved at all times.
• Appraise and promptly act on customer issues /complaints escalating as necessary to ensure timely resolution.
• Ensure set TAT in response to customer queries by phone, email, or letters is strictly adhered to.
• Ensure customer data is up to date at all times
• Ensure branch NPS scores are maintained as per the set standards
• In conjunction with the Branch Manager, co-ordinate branch initiatives aimed at gathering feedback from customers on service standards and advise leadership for improvements
• Monitor service to ensure customers are served within acceptable waiting time having a work plan for both peak and off-peak periods.

Capacity Building & People Management: Time Split -10%

• In conjunction with the Branch Manager, Assistant Branch Manager, and other branch colleagues create a conducive work environment, teamwork and effective succession opportunities to ensure maximum productivity.
• Ensure the assigned e-learning and internal training activities for self and direct reports are undertaken within set timelines.
• Determine and manage Training Needs Analysis and own succession planning.
• Manage your own leave by working closely with your Line Manager

Ideal Job Competencies

Technical Competencies

• Technology Skills: Knowledge of computerized banking applications and spreadsheets
• Conceptual and analytical skills: Ability to quickly grasp and understand systems and keen on details
• Risk management: Ability to anticipate and mitigate risk by implementing appropriate risk management policies for the bank
• Compliance and Regulatory Framework: Top nick understanding of the regulatory issues, reporting, and operational requirements as provided by CBK, KBA, KRA etc
• Basic Credit Skills: Good knowledge of personal and business credit underwriting and portfolio management
• Audit standards & Legislation: Good knowledge of International Accounting and Audit Standards, and Legislation
• Shariah-compliant product knowledge: Well-rounded knowledge of Shariah products, Islamic Banking contracts. Operations and processed and excellent knowledge of bank policies and procedures to consistently achieve the required compliance standard.

Behavioral and Cognitive Competencies

• Results and achievements oriented; Strives to achieve results, enjoys measuring others, being measured, and being judged on performance standards and those of others he/she leads to optimize employee productivity. Ability to effectively plan and monitor the branch performance using defined systems and processes
• Leadership and Management Skills: Ability to strive for growth through performance, nurture and grow talent for self. Capability to mentor and manage changes. Self-empowerment enables the development of open communication. Teamwork and trust are needed to support performance and a customer service-oriented culture
• Communication & Interpersonal Skills: Well-developed oral and report-writing skills, ability to work with others. Effectively communicate with and manage customer expectations (Internal/external), and other stakeholders who impact on performance.
• Negotiation & Selling Skills: Must be a good negotiator, particularly in changing behavior and work practices but always win/win. Negotiate with customers on product offerings to grow customer numbers/value and product uptake
• Human Resource Management Skills: Basic leadership skills, team building, and ability to train, develop, lead and work with highly motivated teams
• Personal Ethics: Must be honest, fair, just but firm with self, and of high integrity
• Relationship Management: Managing client relationships so as to ensure excellent customer experience leading to value added to the customer and increase in the Banks share of wallet
• Conscious of banks' reputation: Protect and enhance the banks' reputation

Closing: 31, March, 2023

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Job Purpose:

Develop and execute the corporate sales strategy for Kenya global markets. Ensure a strategic and coordinated sale, focusing on servicing the local and global markets needs of existing and new business clients. Provide market risk management across multiple asset classes, including foreign exchange, interest rates, and commodities.

Key Accountabilities:

Provide Strategic Leadership

• Responsible for developing and executing trading strategies in line with the overarching strategy for the Business Unit.
• Responsible for the continuous supervision of processing and execution of all asset management deals in the market.
• Monitor and review sales performance and approves activities concerned with the execution of sales strategies.
• Scan the markets for opportunities across the asset classes – FX, Rates and Commodities.
• Drive client solutioning across the different asset classes.
• Ensures that the daily transactions and activities conform to the set business goals and objectives.
• Keeps well abreast of client activity – risks and opportunities Head of Sales.

• Originate flow business and drive new acquisitions and reactivations.
• Drive thought leadership as a market leader in the industry.
• Reviews all periodic reports prepared for Senior Management.

Drive Business Performance

• Implement performance controls to proactively measure achievement against strategic targets and address changes or non-performance.
• Provide ongoing advice and direction to the operational environments managed by this role in terms of the areas of focus, opportunities, key targets and relative policies, legislative and regulatory environments.
• Actively participate in all internal client reviews from a service perspective provided by areas under responsibility through a process of formalized service review (including questionnaires, production reporting, loss event reporting, etc).
• Drive the proactive negotiation of service level contracts with business unit heads with a continued focus on improved performance, reduction in turnaround times and reduced cost.
• Work with the Finance team in responsibility on improving the models for transfer pricing or cost allocation between Sales and relevant business units.
• Continuously monitor service levels and implement strategic measures to improve customer satisfaction and overall profitability.
• Implement governance structures and stakeholder frameworks to ensure effective customer management and engagement.
• Build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships within the industry and within the Bank to ensure the unit is successfully positioned to manage risks and expectations and deliver on shareholder value.
• Represent Sales and participate and contribute to industry and Bank wide forums and governance structures as required or directed.

Drive the people agenda

• Together with HR for the function/unit, determine the people management strategy for the business unit aligned to the overall business strategy.
• Take steps to build, develop and lead a cohesive and high performing Leadership team within the business unit.
• Drive the overall people agenda within the business unit to ensure that the human aspects to performance are considered and embedded in the business.
• Take steps to establish and drive a high-performance culture across the business unit by for example mentoring leaders and using the performance development framework, informal coaching, and formal learning as tools.
• Enable and drive the transformation agenda in the business unit by implementing strategies and addressing barriers.
• Establish and maintain a succession plan for the key roles in the area and review and approve succession plans
• Ensure the Unit complies with Group HR policies and procedures.
• Drive strategies to ensure the business unit attracts, retains, and develops talent.
• Approve Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) action items developed by the management team and review action logs to determine effectiveness of implementation.

Maintain a healthy risk profile within Sales

• Identify and take accountability for the assigned principal risks relevant to the area in terms of the Absa Operational Risk Management framework and ensure that adequate controls are in place within the role’s area of responsibility.
• Monitor all business risk activities (including business assurance and operational risk management) within the operating environment through obtaining feedback and providing guidance for tactical plans to ensure compliance to Group standards.
• Drive a culture of proactive compliance and risk management within the executive team and the function.
• Implement risk and conformance management structures and reporting frameworks to proactively manage business risks and provide an early warning system on an EXCO level.
• Review the risk management and compliance practices of the function as a whole and highlight areas that require improvement to leaders in the team. Ensure that they understand their responsibility for risk ownership.
• On a quarterly basis, evaluate of the status of Operational and Principal Risks within the function and complete the required attestations to confirm control status.
• Present the function’s requirements in Group meetings such as the EXCO level Operational Risk Committee, Group Change Council and others.

Manage the financial sustainability and effective use of resources within Sales

• Drive the annual planning and review of MTP, STP and Revised Annual Forecast (RAF) budgets for the Sales function including the setting of MTP and STP Financial targets and standards and related measures and anticipated financial cost targets.
• Ensure rigorous cost management within Group by implementing a highly structured budget and monitoring and reporting process and instilling discipline within the team around cost control.
• Ensure the function/unit has sufficient resources to deliver on operational and customer commitments.
• Monitor annual resource utilization and implement strategies to improve the efficient allocation and utilization of resources within Sales.
• Ensure accurate and timely financial reporting in terms of the annual calendar.
• Implement effective corrective measures to ensure financial control and address negative budgetary variances.
• Based on proposals brought by leaders in the unit, review opportunities for investment or disinvestment of resources and make capital allocation decisions within mandate.
• Drive the effective identification, funding, and resourcing of new change initiatives within the area of responsibility.
• Present major opportunities to the Group Investment Committee or Financial Partners.
• Review workforce and recruitment plans for the area and reallocate resources where required.

Education and Experience Required

• Bsc-degree or a related equivalent qualification
• (10) years’ experience in the Banking sector which must include proven experience
• (5) years’ experience in managing a Sales environment
• (2) years’ experience on a senior management level in a large corporate

Knowledge & Skills:

• Knowledge of Product Management Principles and Practices (Advanced)
• Knowledge of Strategic Management principles and approaches (Advanced)
• Leadership Skills (Advanced)
• Analytical Skills (Advanced)
• Stakeholder Management Skills (Solid)

Competencies: (Maximum of 8 competencies)

• Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking
• Adapting and responding to change
• Coping with pressures and setbacks
• Formulating strategies and concepts
• Deciding and initiating action
• Delivering results and meeting customer expectations
• Leading and supervising
• Working with people

Application Deadline – Monday 3rd April 2023

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Job Purpose:

To manage the implementation, maintenance, and enhancement of all Core Banking (Retail and corporate) Applications systems to enable the use of appropriate platform technology, as an integral and reliable component of business process within country. In-depth Knowledge of Oracle PL SQL, Oracle database/table structure, web-service/API and XML files is must. Good understanding of banking Functionalities like CASA, Retail and Corporate Loans, Fixed deposits, NEFT, RTGS, General Ledger, Year End Processing, Classification of Normal, Suspended Accounts, Inward and Outward Clearing.

Drive convergence of technologies, ensure delivery of technology projects associated with Applications and liaise and negotiate with internal customers and technology vendors.

Key Accountabilities:

Service (Applications) Availability.   40%

The prime responsibility is for maintaining the availability and reliability of core banking applications to ensure that IT can effectively meet service targets in accordance with planned business objectives.

Key Activities

• Provide a range of application availability reporting to ensure that agreed levels of availability, reliability and maintainability are measured and monitored on an ongoing basis
• Successfully facilitate delivery of changes to reports needed by the business and ensure that reports and their dependencies are made available for the business.
• Provide holistic support of application availability to Business Users
• Take actions to achieve reductions in frequency and duration of incidents that impact application availability
• Ensure shortfalls in application availability are recognized and appropriate corrective actions are identified and progressed
• Act on agreed appropriate actions with Line Management to maintain or improve application availability levels
• Initiate and coordinate actions required to maintain or improve availability of applications
• Act as a coordination point for changes to applications when needed
• Maintain an awareness of technology advancements and best practices that support application availability
• Log and monitor incidents in the Portal and ensure they are scoped for release

Change and Test Management 20%

Responsibility is to ensure that proper testing occurs for all Application changes released into the production environments as assigned to you by Line Management

Key Activities

• Work closely with Release Analysts
• Review releases and assign appropriate release testing tasks
• Vet & validate changes to ensure no disruption.
• Engage in changes and collaborate to deliver new requirements.
• Compile and review the Testing Deliverables
• Conduct installation procedure tests
• Participate in functional, performance, and integration testing results
• Coordinate user acceptance testing
• Coordinate back out testing
• Conduct supporting documentation review
• Compile test results
• Conduct release test review
• Coordinate post release testing
• Validate and communicate results of testing activities

Business Liaison 20%

• Point of contact for one or more business units to represent IT services.

Key Activities

• Identify service needs for the Business Units represented to IT
• Escalate Business unit service issues to the Service Manager
• Communicate service status on service issues to the Business Unit
• Assist in SLA negotiation efforts with Business Unit(s)
• Report on quality of services rendered to Business Unit(s)
• A fast learner keen on developing knowledge and experience in service delivery.

Risk Management 10%

• Build relationship with country Technology Risk and Compliance team and provide support wherever required.
• Contribute and deliver to the improvement of the risk profile by delivering improved governance, risk management, controls, and compliance requirements.
• Devise and implement an effective plan to deliver a satisfactory risk and audit profile for Operations & IT and achieve audit and assurance targets.

People Management 10%

• Responsible for driving own Performance Development, collating relevant documentation, preparing for, and arranging reviews.
• By utilizing skills matrix, identify training and development requirements, formulating own plan to be agreed with team leader. Responsible for ensuring own plan is completed within agreed timescales.
• Undertake all necessary training to perform the role to the required standards, including gaining accreditation where appropriate.

Education and experience required

• Bachelor’s Degree in (Computer Science / Information Technology)
• Oracle Database or equivalent certification
• (5) years’ experience in Core Banking system with knowledge in Oracle Flexcube
• ITIL v4 Certificate

Knowledge and skills: (Maximum of 6)

• Proficiency with Oracle & Microsoft SQL Database
• Translate Business Requirement to Tech Solutions
• Strategic Thinking
• ITIL – Governance Framework
• Communication Skill (Written and Verbal)
• Subject matter expert in Flexcube
• Ability to analyze, make decision and initiate execution

Competencies: (Maximum of 8 competencies)

• Deciding and initiating action
• Learning and researching
• Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking
• Relating and networking
• Adapting and responding to change
• Persuading and influencing
• Creating and innovating

Application Deadline – Monday 3rd April 2023