Settlements Associate

at  Close Brothers Group

This newly created hire will assist the Settlements Manager on all day-to-day settlement processes, ensuring that all settlement back-office functions are processed in a timely and accurate manner.

REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Experience and knowledge of Settlements, understanding of the Fund, International and UK Market.
• Track record of maintaining high performance standards; clear focus and commitment to driving great customer outcomes, profitability, and shareholder value.
• Working knowledge of the regulatory frameworks and requirements that apply to the business, including the CASS rules when managing client’s money or assets.
• Ability to focus and commit to delivering against deadlines.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to multitask and deal with multiple issues via different forums.
• Effective and proficient communication and written skills.
• Ability to prioritise, be responsive, deal with ambiguity, and respond to changing

THE COMPANY

Winterflood Business Services (WBS) is a business to business (B2B) platform provider whose award-winning service has seen us grow to over £15bn AUA with an expanding client list. Our highly skilled and experienced team is dedicated to providing the standards our clients rightly demand.
Our aim is to help solve client problems and ease their regulatory and administrative burden with secure, integrated, and bespoke end-to-end solutions to achieve their investment objectives. Execution quality and excellent service are at the core of our business, all set out in our service level agreements for full transparency.
The WBS service is provided through our EOS platform, which is a proprietary system developed by our in-house development team. EOS is built using the latest technologies and is based on micro-service architecture, making the platform easy to scale and deploy new functionality. We are also market innovators, capable of recognising unfilled needs and developing products to suit our customers’ needs and changing regulatory requirements.
We became a separate division of Winterflood Securities in 2010, in response to demand from clients who were looking for ‘whole of market access and ‘custody services’. Our strategy remains to continue to invest in people, process, and technology to allow us to scale for the growth in our existing business, as well as taking on new clients

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• To produce regular management information.
• To maintain an up-to-date awareness of relevant settlement environmental changes, inclusive of their direct or indirect impact on infrastructure and the different business divisions of Winterflood.
• To ensure complete and accurate internal reporting of Client Money and Asset Requirements
• To respond to audit requests, as directed.
• To ensure complete and accurate counterparty setup.
• To maintain Client and our own SSIs.
• To ensure trades are matched (where possible) and settled in a timely manner.
• To ensure client requirements are processed in respect of commission and trade confirmations.
• To ensure all Buy-Backs and manual trades are processed correctly, making sure PnL is posed correct and that withdrawals, registrations, disclosure forms are all completed accurately and lodged with the registrar.
• To ensure all reconciliations are completed and align to SPARK.
• To ensure non-electronic settlement is managed carefully and accurately.
• To ensure FTT is accurately processed.
• To monitor and manage the realignment of stock.
• To monitor and manage any potential Buy-Ins.
• To ensure all Settlement Agent Invoices are reconciled and to complete and retain any required sign-off authorisation.
• To maintain the Settlements Confluence page, to ensure documentation is up-to-date.
• To ensure that any failing trades are pursued, with accurate notes maintain within SPARK.
• To ensure that any certificates are correctly recorded, stored, and periodically reconciled.
• To suggest changes that would make settlement more efficient.
• Build and maintain a strong culture of compliance, risk management, integrity, client focus and other such Winterflood or Close Brothers values.
• Help drive an efficient settlement team to ensure that Operations Team can service their internal and external clients accurately, enhancing the reputation of the Team throughout the industry.
• To ensure timely placement of all client fund orders with the relevant Fund Manager/TA’s as per the guidelines set out in the procedure.
• Manage custody positions to achieve timely settlement where possible.
• Process all Contract Notes for Fund Trades on the date of receipt.
• Assist the Client Service team in answering any client queries to ensure that we respond to the client on the same day.
• Ensure all asset and cash breaks assigned to the team are investigated and resolved in a timely manner.
• Prioritise and know which markets/risk to deal with in defining workload.
• Assist in the collation of all daily, weekly, and monthly MI, KPI’s and KRI’s within Operations, ensuring production is timely and accurate.
• Assist Settlement Manager with any required documents in preparation for Client meetings.
• Assist in the continuous development of both systems and process, liaising with internal and external counterparts where necessary.