Specialist: Legal

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together one story at a time.
- With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

To provide defined fiduciary end-to-end advisory services on all aspects of estate planning, wealth management, formation and administration of domestic and cross-border trusts and companies and dedicated planning for any complex, local and cross-border assets to clients in Relationship Bank, Corporate and Investment Bank, Retail Bank, and all other distribution channels as per Absa’s Non-Banking Financial Services Advice and Fulfillment strategy pertaining to Fiduciary Services and Products. Training to Bankers and Financial Advisers in order for them to identify opportunities to deliver the total Client Value Proposition to their clients.

Job Description

Advisory Services:
Assist in providing identified Advisory services to High Net Worth clients of the Group and Bankers/Financial Advisers on fiduciary matters that fall within the ambit of the Financial Planning Institute (FPI) and the Fiduciary Institute of South Africa (FISA), with specific reference to Estate, Retirement and Insurance Planning.
Assist in providing support in the usage of Wealth Planning techniques and structuring vehicles.
Assist in drafting Estate Planning and Business Assurance proposals.
Consult directly with the Bankers/Financial Adviser who liaises with clients.
Provide support in the drafting of Wills and Trusts. Alternatively ensure that Wills and Trusts drafted by Absa Trust are according to the client’s needs and instructions given to Absa Trust.
Provide specialised Advisory services to High Net-Worth Clients of the Group and Bankers\Financial Advisers or other stakeholders on Legal, tax and other complex financial planning matters that fall within the ambit of the FPI and FISA.
Provide technical training in the specialised area of Wealth Planning techniques/skills to the Bankers.
Support technical interpretation and usage of Wealth Planning structuring vehicles.
Estate Planning Proposals, Trust Audit, and or Ownership Structure Proposals.
To consult directly with clients and related Private Banker/Financial Advisers.
As part of a national multi-disciplined Centre of Excellence, to assist other Specialists with experience and knowledge, as well as peer-reviewing any written advice to clients.
To provide Regional Management with high-level knowledge of technical financial planning and estate planning aspects.
To provide expert inputs as required in strategic projects/initiatives, forming a key part of the wealth planning intellectual capital in Absa Trust.

Stakeholder Management:
Build strong relationships with both global and local internal and external stakeholders.
Effectively communicate developments within areas of activity to all relevant stakeholders.
Ensure impeccable and timeous service levels.
Liaise with various Business Unit Heads within Absa Group.
To liaise with Absa Trust Legal and Compliance to ensure alignment within Absa Trust in the areas of technical legal and compliance matters.
To liaise with Absa Group specialists (i.e., Absa Group Tax, Absa Group Legal, Absa Trust, BPB&T, Wealth Advisory, etc.) to ensure alignment within Absa Group regarding all relevant technical matters.
To liaise with our international partners in providing their offshore offering to High Net-Worth Clients.

Revenue Generation:
Manage the commercial profitability of the Legal and Advisory Specialist team to ensure accomplishment of set revenue targets.

New and Revised Wills Target:
Ensure the quality inflow of new segmented business from distribution channels (Private Bank and Business Bank by monitoring Sales Statistics from the relevant sub-segments.
Ensure sales targets are met within all targeted distribution channels (Relationship Bank, Corporate and Investment Bank, Retail Bank, and all other distribution channels), by managing weekly and monthly statistics (i.e., results in conjunction with the management of above segments). Any divergences of the statistics will necessitate action planning with the segments in order to achieve the sales target.
Send Will Applications directly to the Wills Drafting Office of Absa Trust.
Ensure that a proper Estate Plan is executed for the client by utilising different Estate planning tools such as Trust: Inter Vivos. Living. First Dying, Agencies and corporate structures.

Filing of Signed Wills:
Maximise the safe custody of all signed Wills by training all Relationship Bank, Corporate and Investment Bank, Retail Bank, and all other distribution channels in terms of importance of having customers / clients Wills in safe keeping, thus ensuring a further stream of income to Absa Trust.
Check that all signed Wills lodged for Safe Custody meet