Account, Trade Finance & Treasury Officer needed at Cardinal Torch Company Limited

Summary:

The role of Trade Finance and Treasury Specialist where you will mostly be focusing on managing all aspects of trade finance, maintaining banking relationships, and policy and procedure development. Trade Finance is the combination of products and services used by corporations to facilitate and finance international exports and imports of goods and services. Banks providing trade finance services act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers, ensuring timely payments and providing performance guarantees.

Responsibilities:

Documentary Credit& Trade Finance Instruments:

• Main point of contact for all trade finance responsibilities and issues.
• Manage, monitor, and analyze export trade finance instruments received in Cardinal Torch Company Limited’s favor and requesting amendments where necessary.
• Manage all aspectsof trade finance;operation of letters of credit, stand by letters of credit, bonds and guarantees. Monitoring of internal credit lines. Non-payment risks sell off to banks and insurance companies.
• Issue, monitor and request Standby/Documentary Letters of Credit and related amendments with all interested parties (counterparties).
• Liaise with Banks and Market colleagues to ensure export trade finance instruments are valid, amended in a timely manner and charges incurred are accurate.
• Establish a strong working relationship with traders, operations, risk, and legal team. Proactive communication with all departments. Liaise with banks, local and overseas counterparts when necessary to ensure timely receipt and issuance of financial security, receipt of payments and delivery of products.
• Ensuring compliance with various types of contracts (e.g., storage, commercial, etc.) in protecting the Company’s interests.
• Liaise with suppliers, buyers, terminals, banks to ensure timely receipt and issuance of financial security, receipt of payments and delivery of products.
• Liaise with Banks and Market colleagues to ensure export trade finance instruments are valid, amended in a timely manner and charges incurred are accurate.
• Identify process improvement opportunities to improve reporting, eliminate delays in settlement and positively impact working capital.
• Optimize working capitalinitiative by workingwith market financeand commercial teams on preferred payment methods.
• Lead and manage regular meetings /conference calls cross functionally with multiple stakeholders to track all relevant Trade Finance instruments.
• Support O2C Specialist on key metricsand continuous processimprovements.
• Support the implementation of automated issuance and tracking processes via preferred banking partners’ platforms.
• Work with specialist to utilize core SAP systems and other IT systems where applicable for metrics/reporting.
• Support the team to enablethe business in utilizing other instruments such as Documentary Credits and Documentary Collections.

Restricted Market Compliance:

• Ensure regulations and guidance with respect to financial transactions related to restricted (sanctioned) countries are applied throughout Cardinal Torch Company Limited.
• Support the team to ensure processes are designed appropriately and contain the relevant control mechanisms to ensure all financial transactions to/from restricted countries are handled appropriately.
• Full awareness of the Company’s sanctions policies

Financing Relationships:

• Maintaining current bank relationships by regular communication/updates to banking partners to ensure a cohesive relationship, as well as what areas need developing, improving, etc.
• Identify/develop new bankingrelationships that could be established to add to the company’s bank portfolio.
• Liaise with internal legal/finance/credit to review/negotiate facility agreements and maximize the workability to the company.
• Preparation of ad hoc strategic/financial reports as required.

Policy/procedure development and review:

• Contribute to trade finance policy and procedural reviews as appropriate, including proposals to improve the functionality of current in-house systems.
• Submit proposals to management for other systems that are deemed required for the trade finance role.
• Developing/Innovating new ideas/trade finance products to enhance the day-to-day operation of the trade finance function and improve the efficiency/effectiveness of the department and carry out their implementation.
• Assist in other duties from time to time as reasonably required by the company.
•  

Key Performance Indicators:

Securing Trade with transactional servicing:

Selling products that allows clients to export and import goods with the understanding that the banks in the middle will sort of act as guarantors for the trade transaction. This is done through products like Letters of Credit, Standby Letters of Credit etc. Essentially, the banks act as middlemen and ensure that their respective clients do not get ripped off. The role of a trade specialist is to negotiate and sell these.

Funding Trade:

This is where the financing part of trade finance comes into the picture. Many medium or sometimes even larger companies often rely on banks to fund their imports or to advance them cash against payment commitments like Letters of Credit. This is also usually a transactional process where most of the work is done at the time of deal initiation. In fact, because of this transactional nature of trade finance, many banks often include trade finance under the transaction banking division or global transaction services or something of that nature.

Structuring Bespoke Trade Deals:

Structured Trade Finance is the term used to define bespoke and more complex trade transactions. Such deals require complex coordination and input from various other teams as well. Such a deal might involve creating special structures and integrating various products from FX to vanilla loans to create a custom trade solution for the client.

Requirements/Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business related discipline – Finance, Accounting, or related field.
• Master’s degree (MBA) is highly preferred.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience with Trade Finance in commodity trading environment.
• Minimum 3 years ‘experience in managing borrowing base facilities
• ACCA/ICAN certification is an advantage.
• Successful candidates will be IT literate and have a good working knowledge of MS Office suite with expertise in Excel.
• Must have good technical and practical knowledge of governing rules and guidelines.

Skills:

• Trade Settlement
• Letters of Credit
• Bank Relations ? reconciliation, letters interpretation.
• Quantitative skills
• Product knowledge and the ability to gain the client’s trust
• Country specific laws
• Being a good salesman
• Crisis management
• Familiarity with risk control matrices, business process flows and standard operating procedures
• Strong interpersonal skills to develop/maintain strong relationships with process owners, business partners, senior leaders, the market, financial institutions, and the wider finance community.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and work well under pressure.
• Strong communication and facilitation skills
• Proven ability to act appropriately on own initiative to solve issues which arise
• Accurate and precise

 Only Candidate within Lagos Island and its environs would be shortlisted.