Legal Lead Specialist: Everyday Banking

at  Absa Bank Limited

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.
With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.
Job Summary
This legal role is instrumental in safeguarding Absa’s reputation and ensuring its operations remain in strict adherence to all laws and regulatory standards. This is a senior leadership position responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing the organization’s legal risk framework to mitigate risks, maintain regulatory compliance, and safeguard the firm’s reputation.
The individual in this role is expected to provide strategic thought leadership in the Legal function, provide complex advice and support in the positioning of legal, risk and compliance operating models, navigate complex regulatory landscapes, proactively address emerging legal challenges and provide practical legal and business solutions.
The role will primarily focus on providing legal support and advice to team and the business generally, including taking responsibility for transaction documentation, assisting with product development, and providing specific advice in response to business queries. The individual will also be expected to lead the team when working on significant Group-wide projects. The role requires close liaison with stakeholders at all levels, colleagues and participation in industry bodies (eg BASA) and therefore requires excellent communication skills.

The key specific accountabilities of this role would be the following:

• Business Enablement: Ensure accurate and timely legal and regulatory guidance and support in respect of regulatory requirements, always considering the potential alternatives within the rules and regulations applicable, endeavouring to find solutions to ensure lawfulness and compliance as well as the continuation of business;
• Manage risk: Perform risk assessments and make risk recommendations to business and drive a satisfactory functional Risk and Control Assessment (RCA).
• Play a pro-active and leading role in driving external and industry wide impact to manage and mitigate legal risk – this includes representing Absa or supporting Absa representatives on various industry bodies e.g. BASA, PASA etc.
• Build and grow strong external relationships and engagements with Regulators, particularly NCR and FSCA, and continue pro-active stakeholder engagement and involvement on a business, regulator, and industry level.
• Stay abreast of evolving regulatory requirements and drive necessary changes in policies and procedures to address new obligations.

Job Description
Key Accountabilities

Accountability: Advisory Services

• Provide expert guidance and advice to various business units and senior management on legal-related matters, including new product launches and strategic initiatives.
• Manage new regulatory requirements by evaluating regulations (local and international) identified as relevant to the business and provide an impact analysis relevant to the business. Address impacts, including policy amendments, business notifications and provision of training.
• Implement training programs to enhance regulatory awareness and knowledge among employees, fostering a culture of compliance throughout the organization.

Accountability: Monitoring and Reporting

• Establish monitoring and reporting mechanisms to track legal risk and compliance with internal policies, promptly reporting any breaches or issues to senior management and compliance colleagues owning contact with regulatory bodies.
• Be the accountable key legal and regulatory risk owner for the business and perform on-going monitoring of the business through stakeholder engagement, compilation and assessment of management information, and tracking and analysis of material issues.
• Maintain detailed legal risk assessments for the business, identifying all regulations and assessing the regulatory risk.
• Maintain and assess legal and regulatory risk MI for the business. Perform effective verification testing on key legal and regulatory risks of the business. Review and provide input on the Legal Risk Review coverage for the business.
• Review the business coverage plan, the scope of each review, conclusions and final report of each review. Assess the overall testing coverage on legal and regulatory risk for the business and address deficiencies.

Accountability: Stakeholder management and leadership

• Lead a Legal team which takes accountability for the legal, regulatory and reputational risks within an accountable area.
• Develop, motivate and manage people by recognizing performance, providing appropriate interventions and opportunities, and addressing poor performance.
• Ensure effective performance management, development and succession planning.
• Inspire and promote high performance in individuals and in the function. Act as a mentor and role model and drive proactive application of the Values throughout the team including establishment of common goals and objectives.
• Equip team to deliver based on a high-performance culture and provide strategic direction to the team in line with the strategic direction of the Group.
• Support the Head of Everyday Banking Legal through developing and executing the Everyday Banking and Legal function strategy, contributing to departmental recruitment and identifying and remediating departmental issues.

Accountability: Decision making and problem solving

• The individual must be innovative and forward thinking in their approach by keeping up to date with the latest technologies across industry and the evolving legal and regulatory landscape as well as industry developments;
• Through understanding the changing regulatory landscape, applying those changes in Absa yet mindful of impact of decisions on customers, business relationships as well as on South African and Absa Regional Offices’ economies, with cognisance to the greater globe;
• Able to understand issues in context, by taking a holistic view, and able to analyse and recommend next steps;
• Challenge existing processes and capabilities by designing new ways of working; and
• Exploring opportunities for improving existing capabilities through intuitive use of new analytic based approaches.

Accountability: Risk and Control

• Conduct comprehensive legal risk assessments, including monitoring and reporting on emerging trends and potential risks.
• Support the development and updating of legal risk policies, procedures, and guidelines to reflect changing regulations and industry best practices.
• All Absa colleagues have to ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Absa Policies and Policy Standards.

Accountability: Regulatory and global trends

• Monitor, track and create awareness of changing regulatory trends regionally and globally.
• Maintain a good working relationship with the relevant risk and compliance colleagues and regulatory bodies.
• Represent Absa, where necessary, on regulatory and industry body platforms (such as BASA)

Accountability: Liaison across Legal Function

• Play a lead role in driving learnings and transfer of knowledge/ actions to teams within the Legal function to ensure increased risk mitigation and management.
• Maintain strong working relationships with colleagues across the legal, risk and compliance functions to ensure greater efficiencies in the way we work and minimize duplication in efforts.

People Management

• Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to influence and collaborate effectively at all organizational levels.
• Continuous learning and adaptability to stay current with evolving legal and regulatory requirements and industry trends.
• Drive the building of fit – for –purpose capacity for Legal to meet customer needs.
• Play a leadership role and end to end people management to a team of senior and junior colleagues and lead by example, with appreciation of the importance of providing guidance, coaching and training to others.
• Oversight and accountability for outputs from the team and the communication of these to stakeholders. Embrace change and be open to adaptation in ways of working to enable improved employee experience and engagement

Role/Person Specification

Education and Experience Required

• Law Degree: LLB
• Admitted Attorney/Advocate in RSA or qualify to be admitted as such
• At least 8-10 years PQE, preferably in banking or financial regulatory sectors
• Experience in Legal Risk Management within a Financial Institution with a track record of progressive leadership responsibilities
• At least 2-5 years’ experience in a senior management position
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and very strong report writing skills
• Strong inter-personal skills and ability to articulate messages

Preferred:

• Extensive experience in legal roles within the financial services industry
• Strong knowledge of financial products and services, as well as the regulatory environment pertaining to retail banking

Knowledge & Skills:

• Ability to distil complex issues to clear and concise briefings for senior management.
• Ability to build and sustain a high performing team.
• Strong leadership skills – ability to encourage, engage, and empower.
• Excellent negotiating and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to navigate in a complex organization and work within a matrix structure.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience in managing culturally diverse teams in different geographic locations.

Subject matter expertise required:

• Knowledge of National Credit Act requirements generally with a focus on retail lending, pricing, documentation, collections and debt review
• Very good general knowledge and understanding of contract law, banking law, consumer law, estates, law relating to persons and family, IP law, law relating to entities (incl trusts), criminal law, privacy law, debt collection, payments, law of delict, agency, all relevant regulatory law (eg FICA, FAIS, FSR Act, CoDI, Prescription Act, etc), litigation, relevant industry codes, how banking products operate

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

Education
Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Law, Military Science and Security (Required)
Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.
Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertise

The key specific accountabilities of this role would be the following:

• Business Enablement: Ensure accurate and timely legal and regulatory guidance and support in respect of regulatory requirements, always considering the potential alternatives within the rules and regulations applicable, endeavouring to find solutions to ensure lawfulness and compliance as well as the continuation of business;
• Manage risk: Perform risk assessments and make risk recommendations to business and drive a satisfactory functional Risk and Control Assessment (RCA).
• Play a pro-active and leading role in driving external and industry wide impact to manage and mitigate legal risk – this includes representing Absa or supporting Absa representatives on various industry bodies e.g. BASA, PASA etc.
• Build and grow strong external relationships and engagements with Regulators, particularly NCR and FSCA, and continue pro-active stakeholder engagement and involvement on a business, regulator, and industry level.
• Stay abreast of evolving regulatory requirements and drive necessary changes in policies and procedures to address new obligations

Accountability: Advisory Services

• Provide expert guidance and advice to various business units and senior management on legal-related matters, including new product launches and strategic initiatives.
• Manage new regulatory requirements by evaluating regulations (local and international) identified as relevant to the business and provide an impact analysis relevant to the business. Address impacts, including policy amendments, business notifications and provision of training.
• Implement training programs to enhance regulatory awareness and knowledge among employees, fostering a culture of compliance throughout the organization

Accountability: Monitoring and Reporting

• Establish monitoring and reporting mechanisms to track legal risk and compliance with internal policies, promptly reporting any breaches or issues to senior management and compliance colleagues owning contact with regulatory bodies.
• Be the accountable key legal and regulatory risk owner for the business and perform on-going monitoring of the business through stakeholder engagement, compilation and assessment of management information, and tracking and analysis of material issues.
• Maintain detailed legal risk assessments for the business, identifying all regulations and assessing the regulatory risk.
• Maintain and assess legal and regulatory risk MI for the business. Perform effective verification testing on key legal and regulatory risks of the business. Review and provide input on the Legal Risk Review coverage for the business.
• Review the business coverage plan, the scope of each review, conclusions and final report of each review. Assess the overall testing coverage on legal and regulatory risk for the business and address deficiencies

Accountability: Stakeholder management and leadership

• Lead a Legal team which takes accountability for the legal, regulatory and reputational risks within an accountable area.
• Develop, motivate and manage people by recognizing performance, providing appropriate interventions and opportunities, and addressing poor performance.
• Ensure effective performance management, development and succession planning.
• Inspire and promote high performance in individuals and in the function. Act as a mentor and role model and drive proactive application of the Values throughout the team including establishment of common goals and objectives.
• Equip team to deliver based on a high-performance culture and provide strategic direction to the team in line with the strategic direction of the Group.
• Support the Head of Everyday Banking Legal through developing and executing the Everyday Banking and Legal function strategy, contributing to departmental recruitment and identifying and remediating departmental issues

Accountability: Decision making and problem solving

• The individual must be innovative and forward thinking in their approach by keeping up to date with the latest technologies across industry and the evolving legal and regulatory landscape as well as industry developments;
• Through understanding the changing regulatory landscape, applying those changes in Absa yet mindful of impact of decisions on customers, business relationships as well as on South African and Absa Regional Offices’ economies, with cognisance to the greater globe;
• Able to understand issues in context, by taking a holistic view, and able to analyse and recommend next steps;
• Challenge existing processes and capabilities by designing new ways of working; and
• Exploring opportunities for improving existing capabilities through intuitive use of new analytic based approaches

Accountability: Risk and Control

• Conduct comprehensive legal risk assessments, including monitoring and reporting on emerging trends and potential risks.
• Support the development and updating of legal risk policies, procedures, and guidelines to reflect changing regulations and industry best practices.
• All Absa colleagues have to ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Absa Policies and Policy Standards

Accountability: Regulatory and global trends

• Monitor, track and create awareness of changing regulatory trends regionally and globally.
• Maintain a good working relationship with the relevant risk and compliance colleagues and regulatory bodies.
• Represent Absa, where necessary, on regulatory and industry body platforms (such as BASA

Accountability: Liaison across Legal Function

• Play a lead role in driving learnings and transfer of knowledge/ actions to teams within the Legal function to ensure increased risk mitigation and management.
• Maintain strong working relationships with colleagues across the legal, risk and compliance functions to ensure greater efficiencies in the way we work and minimize duplication in efforts