Middle Office Manager

Description

About Us

At Xe, we live currencies. We share the belief that behind every currency exchange, query or transaction is a person or business trying to accomplish something important, so we work together to develop new and better currency services that put our customers first.

Xe was one of the first businesses built on the internet, having begun its life in Canada in 1993 as Xenon Laboratories. Our Universal Currency converter was launched in 1995 and it has grown into one of the most popular currency sites in the world, with over 280 million users worldwide. In 2015, Xe was purchased by Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (Nasdaq: EEFT), and joined forces with Euronet’s HiFX brand, a leading international money transfer business, to offer Xe’s users access to reliable money transfer services as well as currency information under the Xe brand. Today, our platform is used by thousands of businesses from small-to medium-sized enterprises, to Fortune 500 companies.

We continue to have ambitious growth plans as we work towards becoming the world’s most used, most loved and most trusted currency exchange service, helping more than a billion people around the world.

We’re proud of what we do and how we do it, but most importantly why we’re here. We empower people to know more and do better…because behind every currency exchange query or transaction is a person trying to accomplish something important.

OUR PRINCIPLES

• AMBITION – We dream big, try things out and always ask “why not?” and “what if?” We’re ambitious in our thinking and our delivery
• RESPONSIBILITY – We get involved, bring our perspective, and are always open to new ideas. We take personal responsibility
• COMMUNITY – We value a sense of belonging, trusting each other and encouraging authenticity. We contribute to our community

How will you help Xe become successful?

This is a build role. Xe is re-establishing Middle Office as a single global function within Operations & Settlements, and we are hiring the leader who will own it end to end.

As Manager, Middle Office you will help to design, staff and run the function to meet the needs of our global business. You will establish Middle Office as the recognised operational support layer between the front office and the back office. The role reports directly to the VP, Network Optimisation & Operations while the function is stood up, giving the re-integration visible sponsorship and direct access to decision-making.

Beyond running the queue, you will build the oversight capability that comes with it: reporting, trend analysis and operational risk management across awaiting balance, cancellations, exceptions, close-outs and deposit management, so that the function does not simply process activity but surfaces emerging risk and drives accountability across the trade lifecycle.

What you’ll do

The role is broad and will evolve. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Establish the function

• Design and document the global Middle Office target operating model, service catalogue and process standard, and secure sign-off from Operations, Credit, Finance and Compliance
• Recruit, onboard and develop new Middle Office resource in EMEA and Mexico, and bring the existing APAC team onto the common standard
• Define and document the control boundary between Middle Office and Reconciliations, Credit, Finance and Global Investigations, so that segregation of duties is explicit and evidenced rather than assumed
• Build a follow-the-sun cover model across three regions, with documented handovers and no single points of failure
• Transition in-scope activity from front office and regional payment teams in a controlled, staged way, with clear entry and exit criteria at each step

Trade lifecycle execution

• Pre-delivery of settled contracts so payment can be released on value date
• Netting of contracts, distribution of forward and option contracts, and option pre-delivery confirmations
• Linking and unlinking of client funds and disbursements to contracts, and monitoring of funds held on account to match against trades
• Generation of advance payment confirmations and processing of trade sell-backs for returned funds
• Support to the management of client deposits against contracts, ensuring they are accurately accounted for

Client account servicing

• Beneficiary maintenance — creation, and amendment of templates, charge code handling, and bulk uploads on authorised dealer request with appropriate approval
• User administration — new authorised users, linked account users for group and sister-company structures, online setup and login issue resolution
• Maintenance of client details across DFX and HubSpot, including direct debit bank details and account inactivation
• Review of contract-to-contract linking requests, ensuring sufficient information and transparency before action

Queue management and exception handling

• Own the Zendesk, awaiting balance and cancellation queues end to end, with defined SLAs, ownership and escalation routes
• Conduct awaiting balance queue reviews and monitor funds held on account that have not been actioned within tolerance
• Monitor and action the automatic close-out queue, routing formal close-out activity to Credit
• Follow up payment investigation cases, third-party incoming funds and bank RFIs, routing formal tracing and recalls to the Global Investigations desk
• Approve small-value adjustments and write-offs of shortfalls within delegated limits, escalating beyond limit

Risk, reporting and continuous improvement

• Build and own the Middle Office management information pack — volumes, ageing, SLA performance, exception rates and root cause
• Provide trend analysis and oversight across awaiting balance, cancellations, payment investigations, exceptions, close-outs and deposit management, identifying emerging operational risk before it crystallises
• Drive accountability through reporting, and use the data to target automation and process improvement across the trade lifecycle
• Support user acceptance testing for DFX releases and represent Middle Office requirements in the systems enhancement roadmap

Leadership and stakeholder management

• Lead, develop and performance-manage a globally distributed team of five, building bench strength and progression paths
• Act as the single global point of accountability for Middle Office service quality to the front office
• Build the trust of dealers and regional heads — this function only works if the front office believes in it
• Represent Middle Office to Credit, Finance, Compliance, operations and internal audit, and respond to requests from senior management and external regulatory authorities

What this role does not cover

The boundary matters, and we would rather be explicit about it:

• Bank reconciliation and first-level safeguarding remain with Finance. Discrepancies route to Operations to investigate and resolve.
• Ownership of credit risk decisions, exposure and mark-to-market monitoring, facility and limit management, and formal close-out activity remains with Credit. Middle Office focuses on pre-value-date activity and operational queue management.
• Formal tracing, recalls and correspondent engagement sit with the Global Investigations desk. Middle Office routes and follows up; it does not own the investigation.

Who you are

• You have led a Middle Office, post-trade operations or trade support team in an FX, international payments, brokerage or banking environment
• You have built or materially redesigned a function rather than only running an established one — you are comfortable starting from a task list and an org chart rather than a finished playbook
• You have strong working knowledge of deliverable FX products — spot, forwards, swaps and options — and the operational lifecycle that sits behind them, including deposits, netting, pre-delivery and close-outs
• You understand segregation of duties between Operations, Credit and Finance, and can articulate and defend a control boundary in front of Finance and Audit
• You have managed people across multiple regions and time zones, and can build a cover model that holds when someone is on leave
• You are fluent with data and reporting, and instinctively turn an operational queue into a metric, a trend and an action
• You are credible with a front office. Relationship-building skills are essential to earning the trust of dealers and regional heads
• You are confident, proactive, logical and have excellent attention to detail, with the flexibility to cope with changing market conditions and priorities
• Experience of payment system, HubSpot and Zendesk, or equivalent CRM and service-desk platforms, is an advantage
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills, with sound planning and organising ability

PERKS & BENEFITS

• Competitive Salary & Discretionary Bonus
• 25 days annual leave increasing with each year of service (capped at 30 days)
• Paid day off for your Birthday
• Discounted Euronet Employee Share Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• Life Cover, Income Protections Scheme & Critical Illness cover
• Healthcare
• Plumm Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Volunteering day for a charity of your choice

We want Xe to be a great place to work and to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organization that encourages diversity in all respects.

At Xe we are committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and as accessible as possible for everyone. This includes making adjustments or changes for disabled people, neurodiverse people or people with long-term health conditions. If you would like us to do anything differently during the application, interview or assessment process, including providing information in an alternative format, please contact us on recruitment@xe.com

The position responsibilities outlined above are intended to define the general contents and requirements to perform this job. It is not to be taken as a complete statement of responsibilities or requirements. This job description does not restrict the Company’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job as needed.

#J-18808-Ljbffr…