Assistant Relationship Manager

The genesis of Gulf African Bank (GAB) can be traced back to 2005, when a group of motivated Kenyans envisioned establishing an Islamic bank as an alternative to conventional banking in the country. By conducting business on the principles of Shari'ah, the bank would provide an ethical and fair mode of banking for all. Gulf African Bank is the first and largest Islamic Bank in Kenya and one of the fastest growing banks in the history of the banking sector of the country. The bank offers fully Shari'ah compliant products and services that address the needs of not just Muslims, but everyone in the country including individuals, corporate companies, and institutions. The bank was incorporated on August 9th, 2006 and started operations as a commercial bank in January 8th 2008, in a historic event, where it was granted the country’s first fully-fledged commercial banking license as a dedicated Islamic bank, by the Central Bank of Kenya.

Job Purpose:

The role of Assistant Relationship Manager-Corporate, is designed to support the Corporate Relationship Managers in the day to day management of Corporate clients in the assigned portfolio of clients in a manner consistent with the bank’s policies including Shariah compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Receive all the information and documentation required for a proposal from the Senior RMs and RMs to analyze the proposal, follow up with clients on outstanding items
• Assist Senior Relationship Managers and Relationship Managers review/confirm the submitted information and documentation through site visits and subsequent follow-up meetings/conversations—for adequacy, completeness, and compliance with all Bank requirements.
• Prepare a draft of the credit proposal for review by RMs and SRMs
• Finalize the credit proposal by incorporating comments from RMs and SRMs
• Assist Relationship Managers and Senior Relationship Managers gather further information required to respond to questions from the Credit Committee
• Ensure fulfillment of all condition’s precedent to facility disbursement, and ensure that all the relevant documentation is in place
• Ensure all post disbursement documents are timely lodged with the relevant business units
• Ensuring approved covenants are compiled by regularly updating the covenant monitoring tools and communicating to clients on the covenant compliance positions for corrective action if necessary
• To ensure zero returns of files from Credit due to documentation
• Portfolio management and collection
• Conduct consistent monitoring to prevent defaults on client’s payment, alterations in the client’s business, and to be aware of forthcoming client’s financial needs
• In the event of non-payment of a facility installment, ensure that the RM or SRM contacts the client immediately (meeting him/her in person if required), and, if not resolved, assist them in subsequent actions to recover credit in arrears according Bank procedures.
• Monitor accounts in arrears and overdrawn accounts, work with the SRM, RM and relevant Bank staff to reduce the portfolio at risk and work with the Collections Unit to develop and implement recovery processes
• Monitor maturing deals and FMAs and advise senior RM/RM to obtain instructions or payments from the customer
• Review of client financed adherence to terms and conditions of LOO
• Preparing the quarterly facility reviews and ensure timely submission of the same
• Preparing and quarterly updating of account plans for all clients (borrowing and non-borrowing) for review by the SRMs and RMs
• Support RMs on customer portfolios segmentations by I-mal alignments & RMs performance reports
• Responding to all customer queries as per the agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Ensuring that all customer information and queries are treated in line with confidentiality agreements as per employment contract with the Bank and HR policies.
• Assist the SRM/RM to ensure speedy disbursement of approved facilities
• Support the respective RM in preparing the account plans for each client are prepared and updated on a monthly basis and submitted every end of quarter for review.
• Ensure all conditions required in the documentation checklists for facility sanction and disbursement are fulfilled for speedy booking of facilities
• Attend to requests from customers for services such as funds transfers, cheque book requisition by liaising with the Customer service department of the Branch.
• In addition, the Assistant Relationship Manager will be required to manage an allocated portfolio and have some business growth target to be discussed and agreed on.
• Ensuring that credit files are complete and up to date, with the required back up arrangements (both electronic and hard copy); mirror files should be well maintained at the branch for ease of reference
• Ensure that all client documentation is complete and up to date—this is especially important to ensure timely disbursement of facilities
• Capturing and updating facility applications in the system
• Ensuring that Shariah-related, Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and other policies are adhered to
• Ensuring audit queries and action items are promptly adhered to within the stipulated time frames
• Assist SRMs and RMs to enhance the Bank’s profitability by ensuring Bank income (e.g. upfront fees, guarantee fees) is collected promptly

Skills, Experience, Personal Attributes 

• Business graduate from an accredited university preferably with a major in Finance, Marketing and/or Economics. Professional qualification such as CPA, CFA will be an added advantage.
• Proven experience of at least two (2) years in a similar position, with hands on experience in managing a portfolio of clients and analyzing corporate proposals.
• Ability to prepare financing proposals
• Ability to analyze balance sheet and profit & Loss statements
• Ability to do cash flow analysis,
• Knowledge of business segments and economic/industry sectors and risks relating to the segments
• Knowledge of relevant Shariah policies/ processes
• Detailed knowledge of relevant Bank policies, e.g. Credit, KYC, AML
• Thorough knowledge of relevant Shariah policies and processes
• A good understanding of the target market and growth opportunities
• Thorough knowledge of the Bank’s products and services
• Ability to negotiate and close deals
• Ability to cross sell products of the Bank and maximize on revenues from a customer
• Ability to monitor targets, use relevant information from dashboard to identify areas to focus on

Method of Application