Reporting to the Managing Director, Trade Finance & Correspondent Banking, this role oversees daily origination, structuring, business and credit approvals, and post-disbursement activities of the Structured Trade & Commodity Finance (STCF) department in the TFCB division.
The role supports Afreximbank Group’s mission of “stimulating a consistent expansion and diversification of African trade so as to rapidly increase Africa’s share of global trade, while operating as a first class, profit oriented, socially responsible financial institution and a centre of excellence in African trade matters” by finding and developing opportunities for business development in trade finance, corporate finance and investment banking across all member states and participating states.
The Department focuses on generating funded and non-funded structured trade and commodity finance income for the TFCB Division. The incumbent will be tasked to achieve the revenue objectives outlined in the Bank’s budget for the department, as well as non-income objectives and initiatives.
Minimum Qualification:
- First and Postgraduate degrees in Business Administration, Banking, Finance or any other relevant discipline from a recognized university
- A professional certification in Banking or International Trade Finance will be an added advantage
- Ability to communicate and function in a culturally diverse and change oriented setting and therefore knowledge of the workings of the main segments of the trade finance market and the participants in major regions of Africa
- A clear understanding of international trade and trade finance rules, including International Chamber of Commerce Rules of international trade (UCP, URDG, etc.)
- Ability to meet senior officials of banks, corporates and governments and win their confidence that the specialist’s products will meet the needs of these parties
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English. Knowledge of the Bank's other working languages is an added advantage (French, Arabic and Portuguese)
- Proven experience in marketing, trade and trade-enabling project finance products. The incumbent must have established experience and knowledge of designing and selling structured trade finance products
- Willingness to travel extensively and to work long hours where required in order to achieve the Bank's objectives
- Demonstrated leadership capabilities, including ability to organize and manage human resources to attain goals
- Ability to review business transactions and approval memorandums and provide meaningful inputs that help achieve timely approvals; and
- Supervisory duties and ability to steer a team both physically and remotely daily
Years & Nature of Experience:
- Sound experience of at least 15 years banking experience in origination, relationship management and product management functions.
- Familiarity with the major trade finance products to be offered to clients especially syndications, co-financing, club deals, correspondent banking products including letters of credit, factoring, forfaiting, structured trade finance, corporate finance risk participations, project-related financing and considerable knowledge of how these work
Main Responsibilities:
- Business origination:
- Originating and completing trade finance transactions across a spectrum of sectors in all Afreximbank Member States in liaison with Client Relations and other deal team members and with support from the Managing Director of Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking
- Develop and implement tactical marketing plans and managing Afreximbank’s programmes and facilities as applicable to the department
- Design events, plans and roadshows for establishing market presence with emphasis on broadening the geographic scope of the Bank’s activities
- Lead the preparation of annual business development plans for the department, covering all aspects of international trade finance
- Lead budget preparation for the department
- Responsible for the P&L for the department
- Develop relationships with major commodity traders, exporters and importers operating in Africa, exporters and other international players with interests in Africa
- Develop relationships with major institutions operating in the trade finance markets in Africa, including international banks, African financial institutions (trade finance intermediaries) and corporates
- Supervise subordinates and other staff in the Division and guide, mentor and coach as required
- Transactions structuring:
- Structuring complex transactions, developing and negotiating term sheets with the team for execution
- Reviewing team’s term sheets, PAMs and CAMs to ensure that transaction structures are sound and aligned with the Bank’s business and risk acceptance criteria
- Ensure that transactions are sufficiently ringfenced to ensure timely repayment and avoid past due obligations
- Business & Credit approvals:
- Translate business development plans into real business for the Bank from all segments of trade finance market including Letters of Credit, Guarantees, Bills of Exchange, Factoring and Forfaiting, Remittance-backed business, Collateral managed warehouse financing, Receivables backed financing, Pre-export and pre-shipment financing and borrowing base facilities etc
- Support the credit department with information to facilitate the credit process and the legal department in the facilitation of transaction documentation
- Manage the commodity trade finance portfolio, from the process of origination, credit approval and contracting to ensure that the process is finalized within optimal time
- Transaction allocation and revenue sharing:
- Negotiate with relationship management and other product teams to achieve timely and satisfactory outcomes in terms of transaction and revenue allocation and sharing
- Ensure fair equitable allocation of transactions within the team, in line with STCF department and TFCB division’s overall objectives
- Monitoring:
- Liaise with the Banking Operations Division to ensure to ensure timely disbursement of approved and documented transactions, and appropriate monitoring till full repayment, in line with the terms of approvals
- Liaise with CQAS to address any early warning signal and maintain the good quality of the loans portfolio
- Other Responsibilities:
- Perform any other duties as may be assigned by the MD-TFCB and the Executive Management of the Bank
- Compliance Responsibilities:
- Understand and adhere to the Bank's AML, Regulatory and Conduct Compliance policies and procedures, notably
- Staff Handbook (has code of conduct provisions)
- Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter Financing of Terrorism and Counter Proliferation Financing
- Conflicts of Interest and Policies on Staff Involvement in External Engagements/Activities
- Anti-Bribery & Corruption
- Insider Trading Guidelines
- Report any suspicious or non-compliant activities or matters relating to the Bank’s staff or the customers to the Compliance Department.
- Complete the Annual Compliance Training/Assessment.
- Support implementation of Compliance strategy and safeguard the maintenance of effective control environment to promote a culture of compliance within Afreximbank.
- Consider compliance risks in strategy, business planning and wider initiative implementation.
- Identify and refer potential compliance risks relevant to business area to the Director of Compliance.
