Director of Financial Control

Safeguarding

• Act as owner of the group's safeguarding policy, keeping it current with the FCA's CASS 15 supplementary regime and ensuring it is understood and applied consistently.
• Ensure that client funds are correctly safeguarded across multiple banking partners and multiple currencies for EMUK, EMI and PayrNet.
• Own the internal and external safeguarding reconciliations required under CASS 15 for these entities, ensuring they are performed every business day, that any discrepancy is made good without delay, and that records are retained to the required standard.
• Fund any safeguarding shortfall the same day it is identified, withdraw any excess in a controlled and documented way, and investigate and remediate the root cause afterwards.
• Own the monthly safeguarding regulatory return to the FCA, ensuring it is accurate, complete and submitted within deadline.
• Maintain the safeguarding resolution pack, so that relevant funds could be identified and returned promptly in a wind-down scenario.
• Own third-party due diligence and the acknowledgement letter framework for safeguarding accounts, ensuring letters are in the prescribed form and reviewed on the required cycle.
• Manage the annual safeguarding audit by a qualified auditor, acting as the primary point of contact and owning resolution of any findings.

Reconciliations & Financial Operations

• Own the reconciliations function for the entities in scope, including the reconciliations of PayrNet, ensuring they are complete, timely and reviewed.
• Ensure reconciling items are investigated and cleared promptly, with ageing, root cause and escalation reported transparently.
• Drive automation and process improvement across reconciliations, working with the Head of Finance Projects to reduce manual effort and strengthen control.

Payment Schemes, Treasury & Banking

• Act as the entity's security officer for STGS as a direct participant of Faster Payments via the Bank of England, overseeing annual testing, data submissions and scheme obligations.
• Act as a bank signatory across group accounts, operating confidently across RBS Bankline, Bank of England and Barclays iPortal platforms.
• Work with the central Treasury function on the commercial relationship with the group's banking partners, including pursuit of cost efficiencies.
• Partner with the central Treasury function on liquidity, currency and counterparty exposures for the entities, ensuring they are managed within agreed parameters and that entity-level requirements are properly represented.

Audit, Tax & Governance

• Manage the relationship with the group's external auditors for both the financial statements audit and the safeguarding audit, planning the timetable and holding the process to it.
• Review quarterly VAT returns for the entities for inclusion in the group VAT return.
• Support delivery of the interim audit work carried out in the fourth quarter, the full year audit that follows, and the half-year limited assurance procedures over the June numbers needed to verify distributable reserves and enable cash to be upstreamed.
• Maintain a robust control environment across the entity finance function, working with the Head of Financial Reporting and Chief Internal Auditor on risk assessment, control design and remediation.
• Review and approve the statutory accounts of the regulated entities prepared by the Head of Financial Reporting, ensuring they properly reflect each entity's regulatory position, and take them through the entity boards for approval.
• Keep the entities' financial records in a diligence-ready state, so that three years of monthly figures, safeguarding positions and regulatory capital calculations can be produced for a partner bank, lender, regulator or acquirer at short notice.

Leadership & Transition

• Lead, develop and hold accountable your team, setting clear standards and building depth and resilience.
• Manage the transfer of management accounting activities into the management accounts team over time, as those activities are automated, ensuring a clean and documented handover of process, knowledge and controls with no loss of quality or timeliness during the change.
• Ensure no activity leaves this team until it has been documented, handed over, and is demonstrably running smoothly in its new home.
• Act as a visible senior leader within Finance, contributing to the wider development and improvement of the function beyond your own remit.

Key relationships

Internally, you will work most closely with the Group Finance Director, the CFO and the wider Finance leadership team, alongside your own management team. You will partner with Compliance and Risk on regulatory obligations, with the Head of Management Accounting through the transition of management accounting activity, with the Head of Financial Reporting on statutory accounts, technical accounting positions and the financial risk register, with the Group Treasurer on liquidity, currency and counterparty exposures, and with the Head of Finance Projects on automation and process change. You will also engage with the Chief Internal Auditor and the boards of the regulated entities.

Externally, you will own relationships with the group's external auditors and safeguarding auditors, and with the entities' partner and settlement banks, and - through the Compliance function - the FCA and the payment scheme operators.

Your Profile

Skills & Experience

• Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA) with significant post-qualification experience, including time at Financial Controller level or above in a regulated environment.
• Demonstrable ownership of regulatory reporting and regulatory capital for an authorised payment institution, e-money institution or comparable regulated firm, including capital