Lead Consumer Duty Associate, Payments and Digital Assets

Location

London / Leeds / Edinburgh

Salary

National ranging National ranging from £57,600 to £67,900 and London £63,300 to £74,600 

Are you interested in joining a team that is leading the embedding of the Consumer Duty in the payments sector?

The Team

We are seeking a motivated Lead Associate to join the Cross-cutting Market Analysis and Strategy department in the Payments and Digital Assets Directorate.

The department performs an integral role in defining the FCA strategies for Payments and Digital assets, identifying and managing risk, external engagement, horizon scanning and proactive identification of trends, as well as leading on the embedding of the Consumer Duty in the payments sector. 

The department comprises the payments sector team, the digital assets sector team and the data team and works closely with colleagues in the Payment and Digital Assets policy and market interventions departments as well as more widely across the FCA. 

What you will be doing

• Acting as the Consumer Duty Sector Lead for Payments

• Leading and supporting workstreams to develop and deliver strategies for the embedding of the Consumer Duty in the payments portfolio

• Acting as a central point of contact in payments for Consumer Duty queries

• Leading and supporting the delivery of an effective stakeholder engagement strategy for the Consumer Duty in payments

• Building and maintaining effective relationships with stakeholders, including at a senior level, both internally and externally, to ensure the Duty delivers good outcomes

• Understanding, identifying and mitigating the risks of harm arising from poor practice

What you will get from the role

• There is ample opportunity to engage directly with the stakeholders, including trade associations and firms, to influence and drive forward the embedding of the Consumer Duty in the payments sector

• The role is a great opportunity to make a difference to consumers and to develop in-depth knowledge of the payments sector

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash. 

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are: 

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays

• Private healthcare with Bupa  

• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)  

• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary  

• Income protection  

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.  

The skills and experience you will have
 

Minimum

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.  

• Prior experience working in payments or another sector in financial services for a regulator, public body or consultancy

• Prior experience of managing projects or encouraging colleagues to deliver through others

• Prior experience in a role in which strong analytical skills were required; you will need to demonstrate an ability to assess complex information, identifying and presenting relevant issues efficiently, and to a high standard

Essential

• Evidence of strong communication skills - you will need to demonstrate your ability to communicate effectively with a diverse audience, managing complex, technical issues in a clear and digestible format

• Detailed knowledge of Consumer Duty

• Extensive experience in building strong working relationships with stakeholders to support the delivery of departmental priorities

• Ability to work at pace and under pressure, using sound judgement and escalating issues appropriately

• Ability to balance and support competing priorities, working alone and in a team, looking after several work streams simultaneously and overseeing work of colleagues (including performance management)

• Comfortable with responsibility and dealing with ambiguity

About the FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of 50,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.

The FCA's Values & Diversity 

Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation. 

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Lead Associate role.

Flexible working

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements.  Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares.  We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.    
  

Multi-location

As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices.  This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.   

Useful Information

• This role is graded Lead Associate - Regulatory

• Applications for this role close on Sunday 25th August

• CVs will be reviewed by the recruiting team from Tuesday 27th August

Got a question?

For internal candidates: please speak to Jen Wishart on [email protected]

For external applicants, please contact Chhavi Bartaria on [email protected]

What to expect from our interview process  

The process will likely involve 2 stages:

• A case study

• A competency-based interview

Your Recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role.  

Application support  

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.  

If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.