Trust Account Manager (Senior)

Job title: Trust Account Manager (Senior)

DESCRIPTION OF POSITION:

• The Trust Account Manager (Senior) is responsible for providing comprehensive support to clients and ensuring the smooth operation of trust administration.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS:

Key Responsibilities:

• Acting as a compliance officer for assigned trusts.
• Communicating with clients and financial institutions.
• Drafting legal documents such as resolutions, loan agreements, and trust deeds.
• Managing reporting requirements to banks, including FICA, KYC, and AFS.
• Assisting with the implementation of TrustQuay and/or Viewpoint software.
• Supporting LBA and AML audits.
• Building and maintaining relationships with clients, asset managers, banks, and external vendors.
• Handling ad-hoc requests and providing accurate information within required timeframes.
• Must be able to communicate at executive level.
• Intermediate/Advanced MS Office knowledge.
• Good understanding of trust law and accounting.

Key Accountabilities & Activities:

Compliance:

• Compliance officer on all the Trusts where you are involved.
• Communication with clients and financial institutions to ensure proper records are on file and transactions are executed.
• Drafting of the required legal documentation, resolutions, etc., required for transactions and/or corporate activity.

Financial Institutions:

• Responsible for all reporting requirements to the bank in terms of FICA, KYC, and AFS or information required for certain applications as needed.
• Annual compliance review and meetings with representatives.

Investment Research:

• Have some sort of interest in global markets will help with talking points with clients.
• Be aware of the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 and JSE top 40 Index movements.
• Be aware of the ZAR against other major currencies.

External Audit and Preparation of Files:

• Arrangement, planning, and implementation of annual audit for LBA and AML.
• Provide assistance to the team to resolve auditor queries and ensure the audit is completed in an appropriate time frame.

Leadership and Management:

• Gives regular, comprehensive, and constructive feedback to the team.
• Adjusts management style to get the best from the individuals within the team (using feedback from weekly meetings).
• Delegates work to team members considering their capacity, level of skill, and exposure to different types of work and complexity; provides clear instructions and direction, with reasonable deadlines.

Relationship Building:

• Maintain strong working relationships with and have open and transparent communication between all members of the team.
• Develop and maintain relationships with external vendors (South Africa, Mauritius, Switzerland, etc.) to ensure service delivery of high quality.
• Be able to conduct yourself professionally in front of potential new clients and be able to talk from hand regarding the Trustees' Structure.
• Building and maintaining relationships with Asset Managers, Banks, and clients.

Ad-hoc Requests:

• Support the business as and when ad-hoc requests come in and provide information that is accurate, of a high standard, and delivered within required timeframes.

Behavioral / Technical and Leadership Competency Requirements:

• Identifies multiple sources/approaches of information to ensure that details are addressed.
• Reviews the work of others for accuracy and thoroughness.
• Follows up to ensure tasks are completed and commitments met by others.
• Verifies that work has been done according to procedures and standards.

Resilience:

• Remains effective and retains perspective in the face of difficult or demanding situations (pervasive ambiguity, frequent change, high workloads).
• Adjusts personal coping mechanisms to deal with disruptions.

Stress Management:

• Maintains sound judgment and decision-making despite stressful situations.
• Views stressful situations as challenges rather than threats.
• Adjusts personal coping mechanisms to deal with high-level stress.

Auditing:

• Analyse internal controls for large files.
• Plan and control audits.
• Apply sampling techniques/methods.

Legislation, Policies, Procedures, and Standards:

• Understands and applies all relevant legislation, policies, procedures, and/or standards in situations that require standard interpretation.
• With guidance, applies legislation, policies, procedures, and/or standards in situations presenting unique challenges.
• Suggest amendments to improve the effectiveness of internal policies, procedures, and/or standards.

Planning and Organising:

• Identifies varied resources needed (e.g., diverse types of expenditures, different skill mixes).
• Produces realistic and achievable work plans.
• Develop backup plans to manage potential obstacles.
• Breaks activities into smaller components to facilitate completion.
• Renegotiates commitments or deadlines as circumstances dictate, ensuring no surprises at the expected completion.
• Evaluate the extent to which the objective has been achieved.

QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:

• BComm Degree with articles or relevant experience.
• LLB would be advantageous.

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• 3-5 years post-article experience.
• At least 2-3 years of management experience.