Senior Manager - Investment Accounting

About FWD Group

FWD Group (1828.HK) is a pan-Asian life and health insurance business that serves approximately 40 million customers across 10 markets, including BRI Life in Indonesia. FWD’s customer-led and tech-enabled approach aims to deliver innovative propositions, easy-to-understand products and a simpler insurance experience. Established in 2013, the company operates in some of the fastest-growing insurance markets in the world with a vision of changing the way people feel about insurance. FWD Group is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code 1828.

For more information, please visit www.fwd.com

FWD Technology and Innovation Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., known as FWD TIM, was established in late 2019. Strategically located in Kuala Lumpur, FWD TIM serves as a pivotal shared service location within FWD Group, providing services to multiple markets across the Group. FWD TIM houses a diverse and talented workforce focused on essential business and technology services such as information security, cloud operations, IT solutions delivery, digital and data, actuarial, finance, investments, and customer service, among many others. FWD TIM is dedicated to drive and deliver operational excellence and efficiency, foster innovation and ensure regulatory compliance across all business functions as well as maintain a competitive edge in the market.

PURPOSE

• Reporting to the Head of the ICOE this position shall be accountable for managing the Investment Accounting team within the ICOE and providing technical expertise, and solution design for investment accounting reporting and Clearwater.

• Support the expansion of services offered by the ICOE to the Group and LBUs.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Investment Accounting

• Review and approve reconciliations, including position, cash and suspense, on Clearwater for Hong Kong and Group Entities, and escalate to LBU as required.

• Integrate Clearwater reconciliations with Bloomberg and Investment Operations reconciliations to create a single source of truth for position and cash reconciliations.

• Responsible to ensure monthly closes are completed within stated SLAs and group standards for Hong Kong and Group Entities.

• Ensure LBUs close Clearwater on time to facilitate group-wide reporting.

• Support consistent group-wide financial and management reporting of investments.

• Responsible to ensure the FWD pricing hierarchy and related controls and executed.

• Support the quarterly SPPI and ECL calculations.

Clearwater Subject Matter Expert

• Act as the FWD Clearwater expert coordinating between LBUs and Clearwater Analytics to ensure robust solutions are developed (i.e. look-through funds, private equity, alternative credit, etc).

• Ensure Clearwater meets defined SLAs and KPIs and promptly follow-up on outstanding issues with Clearwater Analytics.

• Clearwater reporting subject matter expert working with BUs to ensure they can develop standard and ad-hoc financial and management reports.

Data Management

• Ensure integrated data management between Bloomberg AIM and Clearwater.

• Standardize the recording of investment transactions into Clearwater to ensure consistency of data between LBUs.

• Standardize pricing of exotic assets and cross held securities within FWD growth developing robust practices and procedures to ensure consistency.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

• Monthly Clearwater close completed within group defined SLAs time horizons.

• Hong Kong and Group Office reconciliations completed to agreed SLAs.

• Pricing accuracy of 99.9%.

EXTERNAL & INTERNAL CONTACTS

Internal:

• ICOE Investment Operations

• Group Investment Accounting

• Hong Kong Finance

• Group Entity Finance

• Group Investments

External:

• Clearwater

• Custodians

• 3rd Party Asset Managers

• 3rd Party Pricing Providers

DECISION MAKING

• In conjunction with the Head of the ICOE make staffing related decisions for direct reports.

• Approve suspense reconciliation adjustments and entries

QUALIFICATIONS / EXPERIENCE

• University degree in Accounting/Business/Finance or related fields.

• 10+ years of experience working in investment accounting or a fund accounting environment

KNOWLEDGE & TECHNICAL SKILLS

Business Knowledge

• Expert in investment or fund accounting

• Solid knowledge of investment products

• Experience working with Private Equity and Alternative Credit products is an asset

Technical Skills

• Investment Accounting Systems (PAM, FAM, Portia, Clearwater, etc)

• Microsoft Office

• Pricing Providers such Bloomberg, Refinitiv, etc.

Management Skills

• Experience in leading small teams in an Investment Accounting or Fund Accounting environment is preferred.

• Clarity in communication and being an active listener.

• Provide constructive feedback and build a high performing team.

• Being empathic with a desire to help others.

COMPETENCIES

• Able to work independently or as part of a team.

• Excellent interpersonal skills.

• Good command of both spoken and written English

• Understanding inter-dependencies and inter-connections of systems; seeing the big picture rather than the parts.

• Being flexible and adaptable for change.

• Learning from mistakes and desire to improve.