Senior Country Risk Manager in London

About Us

BACB is a UK bank that offers trade finance and complementary products to clients in specialist markets, especially Africa and the Middle East.

We have been helping businesses with trade finance and complementary products for over half a century, focusing on trade flows to and from Africa and the Middle East as well as real estate in the UK.

Our in-depth knowledge of the countries and practices where our clients operate ensures that we put them first.

• Additional Info
• Hybrid Working: 3 days onsite, 2 from home
• Job Summary
• Leading the country risk team within the Risk Department (up to 3 direct reports).
• Overseeing and contributing to the country reviews and ensuring assessments are practical, policy-compliant and focused on risks that could affect counterparty repayment capacity.
• Researching and tracking macroeconomic conditions and political situation across existing and potential markets to identify country risk developments that may translate into credit losses or non-repayment by counterparties.
• Developing approach and methodology to support market entry decisions, with special focus on banking sector.
• Analysing global, regional and domestic macroeconomic, (geo)political and banking sector trends through the lens of the Bank’s risk appetite, limits and exposure.
• Crafting ad-hoc reports and summaries for senior management, Board, auditors and regulators.
• Building strong working relationships with key stakeholders and other departments across the bank to ensure country risk analysis is embedded in credit, portfolio, limit-setting and market entry decisions.
• Focusing on frontier markets in Africa and Emerging markets in Middle East & Asia.
• Key Work Outputs and Accountabilities
• Manages country risk exposures in line with the established risk appetite, scope & scale and policy.
• Deputises for Head of Credit and Country risk as required, managing team schedules, deadlines and output delivery.
• Applies in-depth knowledge of emerging and/or frontier markets from country risk viewpoint to support assessment of hard currency repayment risk for the local operators.
• Leads preparation and conducts independent country reviews and presents in the executive credit committees.
• Manages, trains and develops junior team members to support strong performance and career progression.
• Supervises and contributes to the monitoring and analysis of macroeconomic and political trends, external ratings, internal country grades and key risk indicators and implements update and improvement of the methodologies.
• Oversees and contributes to the delivery of high quality, visual, management information; creates documents for senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Leads and provides country risk SME inputs for ad hoc tasks including stress testing, IFRS9, going concern, ILAAP, etc.
• Works closely with the front office, credit officers and key stakeholders across the bank, building strong working relationships to support informed credit and country risk decisions.
• Engages with external data/intelligence providers to improve country risk analysis and management process.
• Travels to selected markets to deepen understanding of country dynamics and relevant credit risk issues.
• Supports revision of country risk policies and procedures.
• Completes certification process as Material Risk Taker to attain delegated approval authority covering country risk and potentially credit risk proposals.
• Required Qualifications and Experience
• Strong academic credentials in the field of Economics, International Relations, Strategic Studies, International Finance or Business Administration, ideally to the graduate level or higher.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in sovereign or country risk analysis, gained within a financial institution, rating agency, multilateral development bank, or a forecasting/intelligence provider.
• Experience analysing emerging and frontier markets, ideally in Africa and Middle East.
• Business and commercial acumen with understanding of key trade finance products and associated risks, or at least strong interest to gain this practical knowledge or can demonstrate experience within other financial services.
• Ability to effectively communicate with a wide range of stakeholders, both written and verbally, including proven track record of producing regular concise risk reports and presenting proposals to credit committees.
• Proven research skills, ability to cover large chunks of information and synthesize key content points.
• Experience in using digital tools to present data visually, and strong interest to develop further visualisation skills and storytelling (e. g. Power Point and Power BI).
• Superior attention to detail, ability to work independently as well as part of team in a collaborative environment.
• People management, recruitment, mentoring and development skills.
• Have strong demonstrated interest in subject matter, drive for further learning and development as part of the role.
• Language skills in French and/or Arabic would be advantage.
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