Operations Senior Associate - 12 Month Fixed Term Contract

About the PSR

How payments work affects the society we live in; the challenges faced by the vulnerable; how likely we are to fall victim to fraud; and how easily we can manage our money. Payments underpin our economy.

Behind these payments are several important payment systems. We rely on these systems to support markets, facilitate competition, and drive innovation.

This helps to deliver new products, find new ways to protect people from harm, and deliver services that give people and businesses more choice and control about how to pay and be paid.

We need the technology, the rules governing the use of these systems and the markets they support to all work well.

This is where the PSR plays an important role. As the economic regulator of, and competition authority for, payment systems, our role is to hold the sector to account in protecting people and businesses and promote competition and innovation in these systems and the markets that they support.

To achieve this, we have set out in our Strategy four strategic priorities:

• Ensure users have continued access to the payment services they rely on and support a choice of payment options
• Ensure users are sufficiently protected when using the UK's payment systems
• Promote competition between UK payment systems and the markets supported by them; protecting users where that competition is not sufficient
• Act to ensure the interbank systems provide the infrastructure, rules and incentives that foster innovation and competition in payments

Our work is high-profile and fast-moving, within a dynamic environment. The work that you’ll be involved in every day will be about helping us to deliver our strategy, helping us to be the regulator we want to be and helping the sector to deliver outcomes that protect the interests of people and businesses, and to promote competition and innovation in payments.

Our strategy sets out the need for us to continue adjusting our approach to ensure our work is directed where it will have the greatest impact.

We’re ambitious about the future and looking for people who can help us to achieve our strategic priorities.

The PSR is an independent economic regulator led by Managing Director, Chris Hemsley. We are directly accountable to Parliament and funded by the payments industry. We work closely with other regulators involved in this sector, notably the Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England and the Competition and Markets Authority. Operationally we are an independent subsidiary of the Financial Conduct Authority.

Why join the PSR?

There are so many reasons why the PSR is a great place to work! We have a great office and an excellent agile working environment, a great friendly team with an important role to play. So, if you are motivated by making a difference to how we all make payments, then we are for you.

In addition, we offer a wide variety of learning and development opportunities here at the PSR as well as access to the FCA Academy, which has a wealth of resource available to us.

We’re committed to building and sustaining a diverse and inclusive workplace to represent the people and organisations that we serve. We recognise the diverse community in which we operate, and we encourage applicants irrespective of ethnicity, disability, gender, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, sexual orientation, social background, or age.

As an inclusive employer, we support a hybrid and flexible approach to working, so, when you apply, please do indicate any requests for flexibility.

Purpose of the role

This role is being offered on a 1-year FTC, as maternity cover.

It is part of the effective delivery of the Operations work programme and providing operational support to the wider PSR.

The role will involve developing and implementing business processes to ensure we deliver value for money and ensuring staff adhere to these where necessary.

This will include acting as a subject matter expert in operational areas such as procurement and Management Information (MI) and providing training and guidance as required. The role will involve frequent stakeholder engagement with senior PSR and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) staff.

What will the role involve?

• Leading on procurement needs working with colleagues in the PSR and the FCA
• Supporting the PSR Finance lead on managing financial processes; including planning and monitoring of financial position across the departments and projects
• Maintaining the fee process with colleagues in the FCA, including liaising with external stakeholders, ensuring calculations are correct and reviewing submission data as required
• Working with the Finance lead, developing and producing Finance Operational MI and reporting. This may also extend to wider operational reporting
• Developing and maintaining productive working relationships with FCA service provision providers from Finance and Procurement
• Take a continuous improvement approach. Challenge convention and non-value-adding activity internally by identifying and recommending pragmatic improvements
• Ensuring that appropriate risks are logged and managed for the areas of work that you are responsible for
• Ensuring that deliverables and outputs meet agreed standards comply with relevant policies, including records management and information handling
• Working effectively and collaboratively across the organisation to ensure effective service is provided to the business
• The Operations team is fairly small and so you will also at times cover colleagues’ duties across other services, including triaging messages and requests from ‘Contact us’, the PSR correspondence function

About you

We're a signatory to the Government's Disability Confident scheme. This means that we guarantee an interview to any disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.

Minimum requirements

• Proven experience of customer/client service and working in a role delivering support or services to others
• Direct experience of operational roles which could include, but is not limited to, financial management experience of budget control, forecasting, accruals and procurement
• Proven experience of supporting individuals and teams and liaising with internal and external stakeholders
• Evidencable experience of identifying, designing and implementing improvements or change
• Direct experience of managing others’ work. This is not immediately a role with line management, however there is the need to quality assure colleagues’ work

Essential criteria

• Experience of financial or budget management and control
• Experience of supporting procurement activities
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills: the ability to think clearly and rigorously, and to use judgement to reach robust conclusions
• Strong written and verbal communication and influencing skills at all levels in the organisation
• First-hand experience of managing operational processes, controls and business interfaces
• Drive, energy and tenacity to deliver outcomes against tight timeframes in a matrix-managed environment
• Experience in coaching and mentoring colleagues, including junior members of the team, giving guidance and support
• Can articulate an ability to work autonomously, managing a variety of competing tasks and issues, working flexibly, prioritising appropriately and escalating where necessary
• Excel skills are important as well as the ability to pick up and adapt to new technology and ways of working
• Ability to deliver outcomes to agreed standards and tight deadlines

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working in a regulatory environment
• An understanding of the work and purpose of the PSR, its strategy and its objectives

The PSR’s values and diversity

All members of PSR are expected to demonstrate the PSR Values of Integrity, Unity, Engagement, Knowledge & Purpose.

In order to represent the people and organisations that we serve, we are committed to building and sustaining a diverse and inclusive workplace. Our commitment includes disability, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ and gender identity, mental health and social mobility issues.

We are proud signatories of the Women in Finance Charter, we hold the Level 2 Carer Confident accreditation from Carers UK and we signed the Social Mobility Pledge in June 2020.

Useful information

• This role is a Fixed Term Contract for 12 Months
• The role is graded as Senior Associate – Level 7 - Corporate
• The role is based in London
• The role offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package
• The closing date for the role is 21st February 2024
• Want to know what it is like to work at the PSR? Check out this short video PSR recruitment video 2022 - YouTube
• If you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact Katie Ayling - [email protected]
• Please note, applications must be submitted through our online portal. We are unable to accept applications sent via email