Compliance Operations & Regulatory Reporting Specialist (East & Southern Africa)

Company Summary

AZA Finance is an established provider of currency trading and cross-border payment solutions which accelerate global access to frontier markets through an innovative infrastructure. By leveraging cutting-edge technology in our flagship products, AZA Finance significantly lowers the cost and increases the speed of business payments to, from and across frontier markets.

Our digital products provide both wholesale currency purchase and retail settlement via a robust API solution while our Web-Based platform provides over the counter B2B services to organizations with wholesale currency needs. Our partners utilise our hybrid financial infrastructure and deep local knowledge to manage liquidity and send payments to dozens of bank networks, mobile money operators and payments aggregators across Africa.

Licensed by the UK’s FCA and the Bank of Spain, AZA Finance is a market-maker in every major African currency. AZA Finance was founded in 2013 and now has offices in Nairobi, Lagos, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Kampala, Accra, Durban, and Dakar.

Job Summary

We’re looking for an experienced and seasoned Financial Crime and AML Compliance expert with sound experience working for a Global financial institution preferably, to support and drive our financial crime and AML Compliance operations in Uganda and in South Africa. The right candidate should have a sound working knowledge of the remittance and payments landscape, a passion for compliance operations,  regulatory reporting and engagement and an enthusiasm for  disruptive technology. The right candidate will be a proactive self-starter, that is able to work with culturally diverse teams located globally supporting our clients and businesses in Uganda, South Africa and the UK.  Experience filing regulatory reports and engaging with the Bank of Uganda will be an added advantage.

You will play a key role in shaping and delivering the company’s risk appetite, daily compliance operations and controls using system automation and manual review to detect and deter fraud and AML risks within our Compliance programmes in Uganda,  South Africa and the UK or elsewhere, as needed.

While maintaining the customer experience and interests as a core objective, you will be responsible for maintaining and ensuring high standards of regulatory and operational compliance, across all compliance operational controls, namely but not limited to, customer due diligence and onboarding (enhanced due diligence), risk assessment, transaction monitoring and surveillance and suspicious activity investigations and reporting. You will seek to advance and protect the reputation of the firm and maintain a good knowledge of latest industry developments in applicable global legal and regulatory requirements, particularly Uganda, UK and South Africa.

We aspire to lead the way in building a world-class compliance offering at the forefront of a technological revolution. If you think you’re hard working, driven and up to the challenge we’d love to hear from you.

Requirements

• 4+ experience in Compliance operations and Regulatory Reporting  or equivalent in a regulated financial services company.
• Experience in defining and implementing effective policies and procedures, including  from initiation, if need be.
• UK ICA AML Qualification and / or  ACAMs certification (added advantage)
• Understands the needs and dynamics of a start-up and / or fintech environment.
• Must be passionate about Compliance, driving and embedding a strong Compliance culture.
• Demonstrable good stakeholder management experience, confidently and effectively liaising and communicating with  internal and external stakeholders., cross-divisionally and at all levels.
• Strong ability to communicate both written and verbally in English and other languages (added bonus).
• Strong understanding of AML / Financial crime risks in the industry in Uganda, UK, South Africa and globally.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Strong knowledge of current and prospective regulation that impacts our business.
• Understanding of  payments services and remittances
• Been through an authorization process.
• Able to break down and articulate complex Compliance issues into simple, clear language.
• Excellent ability managing projects and prioritizing effectively.
• Proactive and accountable.
• Possess high attention to detail.
• Proactive self-starter, but also able to work well in a team (must be a reliable team player), effectively collaborate with colleagues globally and be able to take and follow instructions from Compliance management.
• Passionate about disruption and changing the status quo.
• Preference for finding automated solutions.
• Product-minded and care about the customer journey / user experience.
• High EQ and able to manage conflict maturely.

Key responsibilities

Benefits