Asset Operations Analyst

About PIC

Pension Insurance Corporation (“PIC”) provides secure retirement incomes through comprehensive risk management and excellence in asset and liability management, as well as exceptional customer service. Our purpose is to pay the pensions of our current and future policyholders. We achieve our purpose by setting Companywide strategic objectives and driving a healthy culture based on our PIC Values of Resilient, Adaptable, and Loyal.

Our Company values are expected to be reflected in the delivery and performance of every role.

Role Purpose

• Asset Operations is a Middle and Back-office function, supporting multiple Portfolio Management and Trading teams who invest into Fixed Income, Private Equity / Private Credit products and Private debt structured assets.
• Ensuring IBOR records are up to date and aligned as per expectation, allowing front office to make investment decisions based on timely and accurate IBOR data.
• Managing and supporting internal stakeholder teams:

- Front office teams on any trade, asset position or cash related issues.

- Finance and Accounting on trade, positions and cash flow issues

- Other Investment Operations departments for investigations.

•  Managing and supporting external Providers:

- Custodians, Fund Accounting & External Investment Managers

Main areas of responsibility include:

Cash Reconciliation and Payments

• Utilising Aladdin platform for cashflow / payment bookings, cash forecasting, reconciliation to custody and Fund Accounting.
• Keep a perpetually accurate cash record within the IBOR.
• Liaise with:

- Asset Operations for any breaks on the manual postings related to: Pension Operations Policy Holder Payments, PIC Finance Payments, Investment deal cash flows.

- Work with Asset Operations for any automated breaks related to failing trades, delayed settlements and CSDR fines.

- Derivative Operations for any OTC related breaks, delayed settlements, and collateral movement failures. Also, on coupon / Bond maturity and Corp Action events Cash reclaims from collateral Brokers.

- Global custodians to understand the transactions from their perspective.

Position Management

• Utilising Aladdin platform system to compare & reconcile custody postings, Fund Accounting and Risk system balances against IBOR postings
• Keep a perpetually accurate positions record within the IBOR.
• Liaise with:

- Asset Operations for any position differences on Fixed Income, Private Equity / Private Credit products and Private debt structured assets

- Derivative Operations for any position differences on OTC Derivatives, REPO and FX products.

- Data Integrity teams for differences caused by Asset configuration.

• Compare Custody and Fund Accounting Records and investigate any trade flow problems issues and liaise with any internal parties.
• Manage internal transfer process where assets are required to be transferred between accounts.

Income Servicing

• Reconcile holdings to payout schedules to ensure calculations are correct
• Working with Derivative Operations to track Income Payments and receipts for any collateral related postings or receipts
• Track Income on PIC Capital deals and Private debt structured assets. Ensure that these are received in from the Borrowers / Loan Agents and aligned to IBOR (Models)

Corporate Actions

• Monitor Corporate Action notifications received in from 3rd party vendors and custodians
• Ensure accurate and timely creation of gold copy event within Aladdin.
• Work with global custodians to understand any event nuances.
• Notify and support front office to ensure elections are made on time.
• Oversight and management of the election instruction ensuring acknowledgement and confirmation.
• Reconcile holdings to payout schedules to ensure positions and cash remain correct
• Ensuring Corporate Action elections are accurately reflected in a timely in IBOR, Fund accounting & custody data sources

Specific accountabilities assigned to the role of Asset Operations Analyst within the broader Investment Operations function:

• Provision of reconciliation across PIC investment platforms as well as to Custody.
• Works with our market counterparties and outsourced providers to deepen and broaden relationships to help position PIC as a good counterparty that is thoughtful, responsive, and fair. Looks to understand market best practices and how they could be adopted within PIC.
• Responsible for the maintenance of a perpetually accurate Investment Book of Records
• Timely and accurate delivery of BAU tasks such as cash publishing
• Timely and accurate reporting on cashflow forecasting for funding purposes.
• Effectively collaborates with Portfolio Managers, Traders, Investment Operations, Pension Operations, Finance, Legal, Risk and Change teams
• Takes ownership for their own learning and development in both technical (e.g. data analysis and critical judgement) and non-technical (self-insight and relationship management) skills of Asset Operations.
• Keeps informed of industry trends, market developments, regulatory changes.

Requirements

Knowledge

• Trade Flow and Life Cycle management of Fixed Income and Money Market Products required.
• Cash and Treasury process management is desirable.
• Familiarity with custodian portals and market utilities such as Swift.
• Familiar with corporate actions / corporate event processing.
• Understanding of KYC, AML and onboarding processes.
• Fundamental understanding of OTC Derivatives and Collateral Management.
• Strong Excel and Intermediate knowledge of VBA.
• Knowledge of Aladdin systems and process flows for reconciliation purposes

Skills

• Self-starter with strong organisational skills
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to persuade and influence both directly and indirectly.
• Ability to organise work to meet deadlines.
• An ability to maintain high standards of accuracy and effectiveness in dynamic environments
• Good working knowledge of MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Word, Bloomberg, and Reconciliation, Cash payment and corporate action processes and systems

Experience

• Experience on a pre and post-trade lifecycle and reconciliation in Aladdin. Covering products including, but not limited to: fixed income, real estate and structured products. Plus all associated cash movements.
• Understand SWIFT network, its application in trade lifecycle, and ability to interrogate native SWIFT messages.
• Can build relationships with key internal and external stakeholders. Portfolio Managers through to Custodians.
• Experience in developing themselves to high levels of expertise.
• Experience of delivering analysis that is accurate, well presented, and timely.
• Experience of working with trading, trade matching, settlement, and custody systems.
• Process improvements and continuous development.

Benefits

In addition to a competitive base salary and the opportunity to participate in our annual, performance-related bonus plan, upon joining us here at Pension Insurance Corporation, you will get access to some great benefits, including private medical insurance, 28 days' annual leave (excluding bank holidays), a generous pension scheme and much more.