Financial Sector & Innovation Consultant, FINB

Innovation

Overview

Support development of cash-based transfer tools and strategies

You have:

• University Degree in Economics or Finance, Business Administration or related fields.
• At least 4 years of related work experience in WFP Country Office and/or Headquarters or other large international company/organization, preferably in Financial sector consulting or with focus on financial services, digital payments, process design and solution development for financial institutions.
• Strong conceptual and analytical skills, competency in strategic and innovation centered thinking.
• Experience in workstream and project management as well as business process design.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and as part of a diverse international and cross-functional team.
• Fluency in oral and written communication in English and intermediate knowledge of French and/or another additional UN language.

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles.

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.

Job Title: Financial Sector & Innovation Consultant

Type of Contract: When Actually Employed (WAE) Consultant, up to 21 days per month

Division: Business Development Cash-Based Transfers (CBT) Unit, FINB

Duty Station: WFP Headquarters, Rome, Italy, working remotely from current place of residence

Duration: 11 months

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

Cash-based transfers (CBT) represent an increasing share of WFP’s total humanitarian assistance (38 percent in 2020), and include assistance distributed as physical banknotes, e-money, mobile money, vouchers or debit cards. In 2020, WFP transferred US$2.1 billion to 27.9 million people in 64 countries, empowering them to meet their essential needs.

In support of WFP’s global scale up of cash-based transfers, the Finance function through the Business Development and Cash Based Transfers Branch (FINB) is developing corporate tools and guidance, providing day-to-day technical advice and assistance to Country Offices (CO) while also undertaking a range of other strategic activities and engagements internally as well as with external service providers.

The consultant will be supporting the development and enhancement of corporate tools and guidance, and provide strategic advice based on market intelligence and financial technology insights to the Financial Sector intelligence and Innovation team within FINB. The consultant will be supporting Country Offices and Regional Bureaux with rollout, guidance and tool enhancement for completion of the mandatory Financial Assessments and work on Innovation projects for CBT.

ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Roll-out management for pilot implementation of PlugPAY for CBT. PlugPAY is a novel digital payment solution for beneficiaries to rapidly receive cash assistance through their payment instrument of choice.

a. Enable COs for beneficiary centered implementation of plugPAY operations in joint collaboration with all relevant cross functional stakeholders and project team members at CO, RB and HQ level to foster financial inclusion in CBT.

b. Support planning and prioritization of all workstreams related to the roll-out, develop rollout strategy and prepare guidance documents.

c. Collaborate with plugPAY stakeholders at CO, RB and HQ level as focal point to streamline implementation, plan payment schedules, guide payment initiation, monitor system reliability and engage for troubleshooting during payouts.

d. Provide CBT finance expert advice to plan and enable CO in finance related aspects of plugPAY implementation, payment initiation and accounting requirements.

e. Align with external Financial Service Providers for plugPAY service delivery, monitor and assess their performance and steer collaboration forums per country.

f. Contribute to policy, system and process updates in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and minimize risk.

• Advance novel beneficiary-centred WFP payment solution project PlugPAY for CBT.

a. Support strategic project planning, including preparation of management communication materials, approval requests and Decision Memoranda, business case drafting, timeline development, country rollout planning and other duties as required.

b. Design and facilitate implementation of MVP process automation, including drafting of business requirements for short term MVP solution based on SCOPE, WINGS and other systems, sparring with TEC and FIN stakeholders.

c. Contribute learnings from CO solution implementation to enhance the solution and plan next steps, provide recommendations for technical, accounting and operations related improvements (incl. E2E process and accounting model updates).

d. Collaborate with WFP internal CBT and Financial Inclusion subject matter experts to design programmatic requirements and derive new policies and guidelines for implementation of PlugPAY.

e. Document plugPAY standard process for implementation and payment initiation as input for plugPAY manual.

• Guide finalization of the global baseline study on global FinTech solutions for humanitarian cash transfers and national payment infrastructures to provide insights for CBT.

a. Evaluate national payment infrastructures, regulatory requirements and available FinTech service providers, to provide insights on country and FSP rosters for CBT implementation.

b. Evaluate the opportunities and risks for WFP to engage or partner with FinTech players and payment aggregators for CBT implementation.

c. Establish cross functional working group to design and agree on WFP’s FinTech and Aggregator agenda to set direction for policy development to enable FinTech use for CBT while mitigating risks in respect to country regulatory frameworks.

d. Guide and instruct an intern for research, data analysis and work for completion of the baseline study with emphasize on global Mobile Money and FinTech landscape.

e. Discuss strategic partnership potentials based on the FinTech study within FINB and in the cross functional working group.

• Represent unit/CO at internal meetings, external meetings and events with other UN agencies, banks and other financial institutions, or other partners and entities as required.

a. Provide and discuss strategic advice on partnership potentials based on market analysis within the Financial Sector Intelligence and Innovation team for FINB.

b. Facilitate cross-functional alignments where interdisciplinary information on existing FSP engagements and available information is required.

• Provide COs with guidance and support during the various stages of CBT implementation.

• Identify and develop improvements to policies, systems and procedures in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of CBT operations, minimize risk, and ensure services are aligned with business objectives.

a. Contribute to optimization and further development of the FSP contracting process for COs in the cross-functional CBT working group

• Other duties as required.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:

• Pilot results of global beneficiary-centered CBT payment solution PlugPAY delivered in project KPIs.

• Concept and pilot results of global beneficiary-centered CBT payment solution captured in management - and stakeholder presentations as well as other materials as required.

• Compilation of analysis results and market insights from the global FinTech baseline study in various output formats.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education:

University Degree in Economics or Finance, Business Administration or related fields.

Experience:

At least 4 years of related work experience in WFP Country Office and/or Headquarters or other large international company/organization, preferably in Financial sector consulting or with focus on financial services, digital payments, process design and solution development for financial institutions.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Strong conceptual and analytical skills, competency in strategic and innovation centered thinking.
• Experience in workstream and project management as wel as business process design.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and as part of a diverse international and cross-functional team.
• Knowledge of financial service provider operations, payment systems, Fintech developments and financial technologies.
• Understanding of global financial markets, sub-sectors and its institutions and stakeholders.
• Comprehension of payment instruments, respective features and functionalities in developing markets.
• Ability to perform data analysis in excel, craft management reports and concept papers as presentations and/or text documents.

Languages:

Fluency in oral and written communication in English and intermediate knowledge of French and/or another additional UN language.

Deadline for applications: Thursday, 14 April 2022

Please note that the deadline is at 11:59 pm Rome time (GMT + 1)

Ref.: VA No. 160788

Kindly note the only documents you need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter. Additional documents such as passport, recommendation letters, academic certificates, etc. may potentially be requested at a future time.

Qualified female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.

Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP: http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.

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Potential interview questions

Added 4 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: wfp.org