Key Responsibilities
The Role Holder’s duties will include but not limited to
Regulatory Approvals and Compliance
- Coordinate licensing applications, renewals, expansions, and compliance filings with Central Banks and other relevant authorities.
- Leads regulatory approvals for EMI, PSP, and NPS licenses, including, systems enhancement and products applications
- Oversee group-wide compliance with licensing conditions, including trust account management, KYC/AML protocols, and operational thresholds.
- Monitor license-specific requirements such as reporting obligations, governance filings, and post inspections implementations.
- Provide regulatory interpretation and guidance on license-linked restrictions (e.g. product scope, agent network conditions….).
Fiscal and Economic Regulations
- Track and interpret regulatory frameworks on pricing, fees and other economic intervention, and levy regimes.
- Analyze and manage exposure to economic regulation of platform access, national switches, net settlement models, and interoperability.
- Provide data points and analysis in industry-level consultations on economic regulation (e.g. mobile money pricing, competition, agent commissions…).
- Lead regulatory impact assessments related to fee reviews, consumer protection controls, or tax reforms affecting digital payments.
- Interface with product, pricing, and finance teams to ensure commercial models align with regulatory economic principles.
Governance and Reporting
- Leads periodic reporting to the Group’s Enterprise Committee and Board Risk/Audit Committees on license compliance and key regulatory risk exposure.
- Supports Risk and Compliance with respect regulatory correspondence, inspection reports, license terms, and agreed corrective actions.
- Support internal audit, compliance assurance reviews, and regulatory inspections with documentation and strategic response coordination.
- Lead pre-inspection readiness across OpCos from Regulatory perspective and supervise post-inspection action plan tracking and regulatory engagement.
- Ensures escalations of material licensing risks or non-compliance issues in line with Group governance protocols.
Processes and Systems
- Maintain a centralized Regulatory License Compliance Tracker for all jurisdictions, linked to license renewals, inspections, and approvals.
- Work with Compliance on the Regulatory component for tracking licensing risk, regulatory SLAs, and approval timelines.
- Leads Reg Tech, digitization and AI initiatives pertinent to the regulatory space.
Qualifications
Education
- Minimum: Bachelor’s degree in law, Economics, Finance, Public Policy, or related field.
- Preferred: Master’s (LLM, MSc in Economics/Finance/Regulation) or professional legal qualification .
Experience
- Minimum 8–10 years total experience; 5+ years in regulatory/licensing roles in payments/financial services, fintech or telecom.
- Proven track record with mobile money, e-money, payments, or telecom licensing across African markets.
- Experience dealing with central banks, telecom regulators, and other government agencies.
Key skills & competencies
- Regulatory strategy & policy analysis
- Stakeholder engagement and government relations
- Drafting and negotiating legal/regulatory documents
- Risk & compliance management
- Project leadership and cross-functional coordination (Legal, Product, Ops, Finance)
- Excellent written/verbal communication — able to produce submissions and present to regulators
- Commercial awareness — understanding how regulations impact revenue and product design
- Negotiation & diplomacy; high emotional intelligence