Job Summary

This role could be based in India and Malaysia. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop down menu showing all countries, Please ensure that you select a country where the role is based.

•    The Head, Settlements is responsible for leading the global settlements function for Post Trade Operations across GBS India and Malaysia. The role is accountable for ensuring that trades settle accurately, on time, and with strong control discipline across products, markets, currencies and legal entities.
•    This is a senior leadership role with direct responsibility for reducing settlement risk, resolving issues quickly, strengthening daily control standards and improving the way teams work across locations. The role holder will ensure that settlement processes are clear, consistent and well managed, with strong ownership from trade execution through to final settlement.
•    The successful candidate will work closely with Trading, Sales, Middle Office, Product Operations, Treasury, Finance, Technology, Risk and country teams to manage market deadlines, funding dependencies, client-impacting issues and aged settlement failures. They will be expected to challenge weak processes, remove avoidable manual work, improve escalation discipline and ensure that settlement performance is visible to senior stakeholders.
•    The role requires a leader who can run a large and complex function with confidence, build strong teams, simplify processes, and create a culture where risks are raised early and resolved properly. The individual will play a key role in making settlements more reliable, transparent and scalable for the business.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy
•    Define and execute the global settlements strategy aligned to Post Trade Operations, Global Markets Operations, Fit for Growth, simplification, resilience and automation priorities.
•    Build a scalable, globally consistent settlements operating model across GBS India and Malaysia, with clear ownership, service standards and escalation paths.
•    Drive settlement risk reduction through prevention, automation, data-led controls, workflow simplification and stronger front-to-back accountability.
•    Represent Settlements in strategic business, product, market infrastructure and transformation forums.

Business
•    Provide effective settlement support across Markets products, ensuring readiness for new products, booking models, currencies, market changes and client flows.
•    Partner with Trading, Sales, Middle Office, Product Operations, Treasury, Finance and country teams to resolve settlement issues and reduce client / market impact.
•    Ensure service delivery meets agreed business expectations, with transparent performance metrics, issue themes and improvement plans.
•    Support business growth while ensuring operational capacity, process readiness and risk acceptance are clearly understood.

Processes
•    Own end-to-end settlements processes, including instruction, matching, funding coordination, fail management, exception resolution and escalation.
•    Standardise process documentation, procedure controls, maker-checker standards, reconciliations and hand-off models across locations.
•    Drive reduction in manual touchpoints, aged fails, breaks, unresolved exceptions and non-standard processes.
•    Establish robust controls over cut-offs, market deadlines, nostro / depot dependencies and critical settlement events.

People & Talent
•    Lead, develop and inspire a high-performing global settlements leadership team across India and Malaysia.
•    Build technical depth, leadership bench strength and succession plans across critical settlement processes.
•    Promote a speak-up, ownership-led and client-focused culture.
•    Drive capability uplift in data, automation, risk management, market infrastructure knowledge and stakeholder engagement.

Risk Management
•    Own the settlements risk profile and ensure proactive identification, escalation, remediation and monitoring of operational risks.
•    Strengthen control effectiveness over settlement fails, funding exposure, claims, compensation, late settlement, market penalties and operational losses.
•    Ensure issues, incidents and audit / assurance findings are remediated sustainably.
•    Embed preventative controls and data-led risk indicators.

Governance
•    Establish effective governance over settlements performance, risk, capacity, incidents, aged items and transformation delivery.
•    Provide timely reporting to Post Trade Operations leadership, Global Markets Operations governance forums and relevant risk committees.
•    Ensure adherence to Group policies, operational risk framework, supervisory standards and service management expectations.
•    Maintain strong governance over outsourced, offshored or hubbed activities.
•    Live and breathe the #NeverSettle value.

Transformation
•    Lead settlements automation, workflow tooling, AI-enabled exception management and data-led control initiatives.
•    Partner with Technology, Transformation and Operations teams to simplify architecture, improve STP and reduce operational friction.
•    Champion standardisation across markets and legal entities while managing local regulatory and market-specific requirements.

Regulatory & Business Conduct
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate, and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.
•    Provide leadership within the Middle Office organisation to comply with the highest standards of regulatory and business conduct and practices as defined by internal and external requirements.
•    Takes a proactive approach to implementing Just Culture and emphasising the importance of the groups’ valued behaviours regularly through retrospective sessions with the team and Channels townhall sessions.
•    Embed the Group’s Values and Group Code of Conduct to ensure adherence with the highest standards of ethics.  Comply with relevant policies, processes, and regulations, as part of the culture.

Key stakeholders
•    Trading, Sales, Middle Office and Product Operations
•    Treasury, Finance, Product Control and Nostro / Cash Management teams
•    Technology, Transformation and Change teams
•    Client Operations, Static Data and Confirmations
•    Country Operations, Legal Entity teams and Market Infrastructure contacts
•    Operational Risk, Compliance, Audit and second-line assurance
•    GBS India and Malaysia leadership

Other Responsibilities
•    Leverage the opportunity provided by Corporate Social Responsibility to enhance the Group’s internal and external reputation and indirectly influence the bottom line.
•    Promote the Group’s brand and Here for good with employees, clients and regulators.
•    Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures.
•    Maintain effective communication with key stakeholders, including regulators and staff.

Skills and Experience

•    Settlements and Market Infrastructure
•    Process Design & Re-engineering 
•    Data Analysis 
•    Client Service & Experience  
•    Risk & Controls
•    Global Markets Post Trade Operations
•    People Management Skill  

Qualifications

•    University degree preferred, ideally in Finance, Economics, Business, Accounting, Operations, Technology, Data, Engineering or a related discipline.
•    Strong experience in Global Markets Operations, Post Trade Operations, Middle Office, Settlements, Confirmations, Reconciliations, Client Data, Fees, Controls, Risk Management, Change or Transformation.
•    Proven experience leading large teams across multiple locations, preferably including GBS, offshore or regional hub environments.
•    Strong understanding of Global Markets products, trade lifecycle, post-trade processes, legal entity requirements and operational risk.
•    Demonstrated track record in strengthening controls, improving service delivery, resolving complex issues and leading sustainable change.
•    Experience engaging senior stakeholders across Front Office, COO, Finance, Product Control, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Audit and country teams.
•    Ability to operate in a high-volume, time-sensitive and risk-sensitive environment with strong judgement and clear escalation discipline.
•    Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex issues clearly to senior stakeholders.
•    Proven senior leadership experience managing large or complex global functions with direct accountability for risk, people, performance and transformation.

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.