Senior Manager: MPESA Finance Full Time NEW

The Senior Manager, M-PESA Finance, will spearhead the financial stewardship of the M-PESA entity within the fintech ecosystem, driving strategic operational excellence and fostering a high-performance finance team. This role entails rigorous oversight of compliance frameworks and the implementation of robust financial controls to protect both customer and corporate assets. The incumbent will serve as a catalyst for innovation in financial process optimization, ensuring agility and accuracy in fund management while championing governance standards that uphold the integrity of M-PESA’s digital financial services.

                                                     About Us

At Safaricom Ethiopia, we are a purpose-led technology company dedicated to transforming lives through digital connectivity and inclusive financial services. In under four years, we have grown to serve over 10 million customers, with our network now reaching 55% of Ethiopia’s population – a testament to our bold vision and trusted partnerships.

Guided by core values such as customer obsession, innovation, integrity, and get it done together, we are building a workplace that is dynamic, inclusive, and empowering. We believe our greatest strength lies in our people. That’s why, for two consecutive years, we have proudly get earned the Top Employer Award – in recognition for our unwavering commitment to fostering a supportive, innovative, and inclusive environment to people.

Join Safaricom Ethiopia and be part of a team that is shaping the digital future of Ethiopia. Here, your work has meaning, your voice matters, and your growth is our priority. Together, we are transforming lives for a digital future

Role purpose:
• Responsible for overseeing the financial operations and trust funds management to ensure the company’s financial health and scalability in a fast-paced, tech-driven environment and to support M-Pesa entity leadership team deliver on the company mandate

                                                                    Key responsibilities

 •    M-PESA Float management ensuring timelines and accuracy to meet business commitments
•    Ensure timely Trust accounts reconciliation & other relevant controls to safeguarded trust funds.
•    Ensuring timely and correct commission payment and reporting
•    IMT partner management and timely issue resolution
•    Timely NBE submission & reporting to ensure fully regulatory compliance.
•    Management of Trust Bank relations, correspondences & Business support across various functions.
•    Internal tills management & correct accounting for the same
•    Continuous system checks and evaluation to ensure relevant controls to safeguard customer funds.
•    M-Pesa suppliers management ensuring timely Reconciliation and settlement
•    Ensure relevant policies & controls are in place to support payment of internal & staff requests
•    Working with STEP treasury team develop applicable funding models for M-PESA
•    Ensure timely & sufficient funding for M-Pesa entity to help meet its obligations
•    Operational bank accounts management to safeguard company funds
•    Accounting for Fixed assets including capitalization & depreciation of all assets
•    M-Pesa Entity month-end reporting management ensuring timeliness, accuracy & correctness of the numbers reported
•    M-PESA entity general ledger management
•    Management and support of all external & internal audits ensuring support & conclusion of any matter raised
•    Intercompany transaction management, ensuring they are at an arm’s length and fully reported.
•    Liaising with the group tax team ensure Optimal tax management for M-PESA entity
•    M-Pesa finance team onboarding & training ensuring optimal delivery of the company objectives
•    Employee management, ensuring reviews, feedback and support of the M-PESA finance team
•    ensure efficient resources utilization and value for money to the M-PESA entity.
•    Being the subject matter expert on M-PESA guide the M-PESA team on relevant finance controls and processes to be implemented
•    Accurate, timely and error-free processing of float applications and withdrawal batches.
•    Timely submission of Trust accounts reconciliations with no variance(s).
•    Timely & conclusive feedback to agents, merchants and the 3rd party partners within the 12 hours of being raised.
•    Timely prefunding of the internal tills to ensure zero declined transactions or escalations.
                   Key performance indicators: 
•    Accurate, timely and error-free processing of float applications and withdrawal batches.
•    Timely submission of Trust accounts reconciliations with no variance(s).
•    Timely & conclusive feedback to agents, merchants and the 3rd party partners within the 12 hours of being raised.
•    Timely prefunding of the internal tills to ensure zero declined transactions or escalations
Core competencies and knowledge

•    Deep understanding and a blend of both finance & financial services (mobile money services will be an added advantage)
•    Demonstratable strong understanding of accounting standard and its application.
•    Good understanding of mobile money systems, controls and safeguards.
•    Excellent stakeholders’ management skills.
•    Good communication skills.
•    Ability to quickly identify risks and capture accounting & system implications.
•    Hands-on experience working with accounting systems e.g., Oracle, Hyperion, SAP, etc.
•    Proficiency in data analytics and visualization tool

Experience and strong understanding of internal finance controls.

Self-driven, results oriented, proactive and an ability to influence to deliver results.
Operational Excellence

• Targets effort and resources on high-value, high impact activity

• Focuses on achieving maximum performance and continuous improvement

• Thinks about processes and problems cross-functionally and end-to-end

• Use knowledge of products, technology, processes, systems and policy to solve problems

   Creativity and Innovation

• Finds creative ways to exploit opportunities and solve problems

• Take risks and push what is possible

•   Experiments with unorthodox approaches

     Business Know how

• Uses data and research to make decisions that are competitively and financially robust

• Balances current and future needs

• Thinks and acts like an owner of the business

• Acts in line with legal, regulatory, professional and ethical standards

  Working with Change

• Responds flexibly to changing situations

• Manages the business and people aspects of change to drive performance

  Project and Program Management

• Defines scope and deliverables in terms of time, cost, quality and business benefit

• Schedules activity and identifies resource needs, dependencies and synergies

• Evaluates progress, mitigates risks and addresses issues

  Functional Competencies: 

  Planning and Control 

• Analyses performance trends to determine the health of the business

• Steers business performance by using strategy and external data to help set goals

• Translates strategies into actionable plans that add value via process and operational improvements

• Maintains controls within Financial Systems through setup control and master data management

  Accounting

• Prepares, analyses and summarizes financial data to support business operations and deliver statutory information

• Ensures the integrity of processes and systems to record and authorize transactions in compliance with Safaricom accounting policies and regulations

   Reporting

• Delivering timely and accurate reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements

• Identifies key performance and variances, and provides recommendations

   Treasury

• Develop and advice on funding strategies for the business

  Tax 

• Apply appropriate treasury processes to maintain financial liquidity

• Delivers filings/reports to satisfy statutory and business requirements Combines expertise and commercial awareness to deliver value added solutions

• Direct reports: 

  Manager: MPESA finance

• Dotted reports: 

  Snr Accountants: MPESA Finance Operations (3)

                               Education & Experience: 

•   Business/IT related degree from a recognized university.

•   Qualified Accountant with CPA (K)/ACCA/CIMA/ACA.

•   5 – 8 years post qualification experience in financial services with specialization an area of mobile money.

•  A strategic thinker, innovative, shaping processes, people, and systems.

Innovative person proven in simplification, digitalization and automation of process & tas

 How to Apply

If you feel that you are up to the challenge and possess the necessary qualification and experience, kindly proceed to create/ update your candidate profile on the recruitment portal and then Click on the apply button.: https://egjd.fa.us6.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/STEP/job/835

Remember to attach your resume