Specialist – Investment Accounting

SUMMARY:
Specialist – Investment Accounting

POSITION INFO:

MAIN PURPOSE OF ROLE

•  The candidate will be responsible for performing the day-to-day operational processes for various investment accounting, data management and market data activities.
• The candidate will work in Institutional Fund Operations, working closely with the other operational departments (NAV Pricing, Performance, Portfolio Administration) as well as Tax, Institutional Client Services, Legal & Compliance, IT, and Trading.

 Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Market Data

• Ensuring that the daily instrument valuation/pricing and exchange rate processes run accurately and timeously.
• Ensuring that instrument price files are received from all local and foreign sources (exchange and vendor data).
• Liaising with data vendors (e.g., JSE/Bloomberg) on data quality and other queries (eg. valuation).
• The setting up of system parameters in Markit (MDS) for certain instruments as and when they are created by the front office team.
• Collaboration with the relevant IT domain teams to maintain, develop and enhance the market data infrastructure to keep systems up-to-date and efficient.
• Monitoring the end-of-day price reconciliation process and investigating any identified price/valuation discrepancies.
• Managing and maintaining data contracts and vendor relationships.
• Managing the benchmark data processes, including:
• Creation of benchmarks as required by the Performance team.
• Sourcing and scrubbing of daily and monthly benchmark data files.
• Managing validation exceptions of benchmark data when required.
• Maintenance of benchmark static data.

Institutional Data Management

•  Creation of instruments as required by the front or middle office teams.
• Portfolio creation and classifications.
• Maintenance of instrument static data for upstream and downstream usage.
• Reconciling static data to market sources to ensure accuracy and consistency in data across all internal systems.
• Investigation of instrument data inconsistencies and validation errors.
• Monitor the BOD (beginning of day) processes.
• Monitoring of communications from data vendor regarding any changes that may affect the fund pricing process and informing other business teams where necessary (eg. Corporate Actions, Trading, Fund Accounting).
• Daily monitoring and updating of instrument classifications used for reporting.
• Additional Activities
• Assisting with month-end pricing across all portfolios.
• Calculating daily interest coupon accruals.
• Monitoring and answering queries from the Institutional Data Management and Investment Accounting email queue.
• Involvement in initiatives/project work that seeks to simplify and create efficiencies in existing processes.

  EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS

•  Chartered Accountant or
• B Com or equivalent degree - Higher Diploma or Honours will be an advantage
• A minimum of three years of experience in asset management (FS articles experience counts)
• Must have a strong technical understanding of instrument valuation and pricing
• Experience in working with the following systems would be advantageous:
• Charles River Investment Management Solution (CRIMS)
• IHS Markit
• Fundamental Portfolio Manager (FPM)
• A history of strong performance.

   KEY ATTRIBUTES & COMPETENCIES

•  Strong numeric ability and a questioning mind
• Accuracy and attention to detail
• A self-starter with the ability to create efficient processes and controls
• Ability to operate independently as well as in a team environment
• Interpersonal and communication skills to build and maintain strong working relationships with relevant stakeholders, both internally and externally, and to defend an opinion with rationale and logic
• Ability to accept responsibility for all tasks done
• Good time management skills, and the ability to manage heavy workloads and multiple tasks – work flexible hours , particularly in the event of market vendor issues as well as follow a shift work schedule.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Very disciplined and methodical style of working
• Determined, engaged and persistent proactive “can-do” attitude that inspires others to do great work

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