Research Officer/Senior Research Officer (Fintech) MCMPI

Work for the IMF. Work for the World.

The Payments, Currencies, and Infrastructure (PI) Division has a vacancy for a Researcher Officer with a focus on fintech (digital money including crypto currencies central bank digital currencies, and other fintech developments such as open banking). The vacancy is for a three year term appointment in accordance with the Fund’s categories of employment.

The PI Division was established by the Monetary and Capital Markets (MCM) Department of the IMF in May 2020. The PI Division aims to offer concrete and actionable solutions to member countries in response to four of the most pressing questions raised by member countries. These lie in the areas of (1) evaluating and implementing central bank digital currencies (CBDC); (2) responding to privately issued digital currencies; (3) improving cross-border payments; and (4) enhancing the safety and efficiency of financial market infrastructures (FMIs), and the effectiveness of regulation and supervision in the digital age.

Fintech innovations are related to any of these areas. The Division aims to become a thought leader in the fintech domain, through cutting edge analytical work by publishing regular fintech newsletters, posts, blogs and vlogs. The PI Division also collaborates with other IMF divisions on fintech exploring legal, information technology, regulatory and supervisory trends associated with fintech. The Division comprises staff with three types of backgrounds: macro-financial economists; business, policy, and technology practitioners; and FMI experts.

The PI Division is keen to hire staff who are exceptionally talented, creative, and open minded; especially enthusiastic, dynamic, and motivated by the division’s focus and mandate to assist member countries; and outstanding team players with upmost respect for others’ work.

Responsibilities

• Research fintech developments specific to digital money and other areas of interest may include digital transformations of large-value and retail payments, multilateral payment platforms, cross-border payments, faster payments, digital identity and open banking.

• Produce monthly fintech notes/newsletters to brief member countries on latest trends and developments on crypto-assets, financial regulations, cross-border payments, central bank digital currencies, and Fintech innovations.

• Collaborate with other departments to draft memos to brief Fund management on latest developments and key messages on digital money topics for Spring and Annual meetings and other high-level meetings

• Draft regular reports documenting progress and results of central bank digital currency capacity development and analytical work to support funding management, reporting, and evaluation exercises

• Provide support for capacity development and analytical work, including but not limited to data collection and analysis, pre-mission preparation, contribution to mission reports, and other tasks.

• Lead the efforts of designing and developing a central data platform on payment systems and digital money to facilitate the division’s capacity development and analytical work

• Write short memos to initiate debate and discussions form emerging trends on Fintech and digital money

• Contribute actively to information sharing efforts through discussion groups, Fintech hubs, fintech notes and blogs, arising from emerging trends.

• Contribute to mission reports. Produce charts, graphs, and tables. Draft sections of research papers.

• Contribute (including editing, drafting and proofreading) to the production of PI publications.

• Prepare training and/or teaching materials.

Requirements

• A Master’s degree in economics, finance or other fields relevant to the division’s focus areas. • At least two years of relevant experience in the fintech domain. • Proved capacity and proven track record of assimilating information into tangible outputs. • Excellent writing and communication skills. • Strong initiative, organization and creative skills. • Experience in leading initiatives and crafting communication outputs • Ability to work in teams, strong partnership skills, and the ability to build/maintain relationships across the Fund

A regular staff member who is selected to fill the vacancy will maintain their open-ended status. If the selected candidate is a contractual employee, they will be offered a Term staff appointment. Staff members already on a term appointment will continue their current term but may receive an extension provided that their current term appointment has not already been extended.

Department:

MCMPI Monetary and Capital Markets Dept. Payments,Currencies & InfrastructureHiring For:

A09, A10, A11The IMF is committed to achieving a diverse staff, including age, creed, culture, disability, educational background, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, nationality, race, religion and beliefs, and sexual orientation.