Head of Agency Banking and Strategic Partnerships at Absa
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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.
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Job Summary
• To Interact with Branch Sales and Workplace banking Channels to grow a sustainable Absa agents’ network
• To lead and deliver on all projects related to Agency Banking and other retail strategic partnerships
• To research, develop, implement, and monitor strategic partnerships for Retail Bank including agency banking channel.
• To manage stake holders to ensure Agents have 100% for the supplies and merchandise required
• To be the primary contact person for all Agent and partners related issues
• Preparation of revenue, business analytics and service reports
• To review recommend and implement new product developments and
enhancements to the existing product set and services offered through
strategic partnerships managed under retail banking division.
• To be the main point of contact for retail banking strategic partnerships related business matters
• Responsible for Planning, monitoring, and setting strategic direction
for retail banking in collaboration with Head of Retail Products &
Strategy and the overall Head of Retail Banking.
Job Description
Job Responsibilities
Channel/ Strategic Partnership Management
70% of the total time
- Lead Agent Banking and strategic partnerships operations and ensure maximum performance of the Agent Banking Network
- Design, plan and formulate strategies to achieve business goals targeting Agency Banking propositions and other strategic partnerships in retail banking
- Boost overall business performance of Absa Agency Banking Network
- Travel extensively to different branches/agent points across the country to enhance business portfolio of Agent Network
- Develop and agree income targets to be generated through Agency Banking Channels as well as different strategic partnerships.
- Complete service research, development and implementation related to channels offerings in line with the market demand.
- Interface with other key stakeholders of the bank such as branches, Workplace Banking, Operations, digital channels, Technology, Retail Credits and Marketing daily to ensure there is a broad understanding of the service offering requirements and frictionless acceptancy of the Absa Wakala and drive aggressive uptake to market.
- Channels Campaigns and service /sales activations to support sales channels
- Responsible for Channels service pricing and revenue shares with strategic partners
- Competitor offering review and market intelligence to enhance service features and benefits
- Build Innovative market leading solutions for the channels and strategic partners
- Identify strategic partnerships and alliances and partnerships to grow market share and brand visibility
Read Also:
Channel/ Strategic Partnership Governance and Control
20% of the total Time
- Implementing the policy, guidelines, and circulars for Absa Agency Banking
- Monitor and ensure all compliance related to Agency Banking are well observed for Absa Wakala
- Prepare monthly financial performance reports of the Channels and Strategic Partnerships
- Review a customer satisfaction surveys to identify channel related issues. Create action plans and implement changes to address such issues.
- Conduct snap checks to ensure agent adherence to required agency banking policies, procedures and regulations.
- Monitor adherence to agreed sales processes by conducting regular walk-through audits and checking documentation requirements.
- Channels profitability models and ongoing margin management to ensure correct focus on profitability
- Income leakage management forum to ensure correct mapping and income flows from different partners
- Monthly review and escalation of conduct risk related to Agency Banking and Channels
Product Training
10% of the total Time
- Identify product training needs or skills gaps and ensure that the local Learning and Development team are made aware of the training needs for Agency Banking.
- Source training material for Agency Banking onboarding and operations requirements.
- Staff training and education
- Customer product/service awareness
- Customer education drive on Agency banking usage and adoption
- Merchandising and agent profiles to be owned and driven by Agency Banking and strategic partnership team.
Risk and Control Objective
- In the event of major issues in the Agency Banking unit, act as crisis coordinator and allocate tasks to the crisis teams.
- Review the risk and compliance profiles of the agency banking unit on a regular basis and provide consultative support to the Head of Retail Banking on changes that are required to rebalance risk and reward where required.
- Understanding of own role in the end to end processes in which you play a part, including applicable risks and controls.
- Adhere to Absa’s policies and procedures applicable to own role, demonstrating sound judgment and responsible risk management.
- Keep up to date on all regulatory changes and have the ability to articulate the impact to the Business, be well informed on the industry thinking.
- All mandatory training completed to deadline.
Technical skills / Competencies
- Minimum 5 years of banking experience including at least 3 years in Agent Banking at a senior position
- Business skills, financial and data analysis and business performance management with strong marketing background
- Having in-depth knowledge on banking regulatory framework and guidelines on Agent Banking and other strategic partnerships
- Proven success records in Agent Banking
- Ability to lead and work independently, consult and clarify where necessary and make informed and firm decisions
- Having excellent oral and written skills as well as sound computer literacy
- Strong analytical and numerical skills for calculation of statistics needed in performance tracking
- Well developed project management skills
- People management, organizational and leadership abilities
- A good understanding of Risk, Compliance policies and procedures
- Process driven and can implement structure where there is little or none
Read Also:
Knowledge, Expertise and Experience
Essential
- Having in-depth knowledge on banking regulatory framework and guidelines on Agent Banking and other strategic partnerships
- A comprehensive knowledge and sales skills related to agency banking proposition
- A detailed understanding of service offerings in the wide financial services industry related to Agency Banking proposition and strategic partnerships to drive innovations.
- Knowledge of Absa strategy and policies.
- Detailed knowledge of consumer behaviour, marketing techniques and evolving trends.
- A detailed understanding of local industry advisory, regulatory and professional bodies.
Preferred
- A person already holding experience in Senior Executive role related to Agency Banking Channels
Absa Values
Absa Values and Behaviors represent the set of standards which governs the actions of all of us who work for the bank and against which the performance of every one of us in Absa are being assessed and rewarded:
- I drive high performance to achieve sustainable results
- I’m obsessed with customer
- I have an African heartbeat
- I believe our people are our strengths
Education
Bachelors Degree and Professional Qualifications: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)
