About Al Baraka Bank South Africa

Al Baraka Bank South Africa is the country’s only fully-fledged Islamic bank, operating as a subsidiary of the Bahrain-based Al Baraka Group B.S.C.. Established in 1989, it provides retail and corporate banking services strictly compliant with Shariah principles, avoiding interest-based transactions in favor of profit-sharing models.

MAIN FUNCTIONS OF THE JOB

Application Maintenance and Support

• Provides ongoing maintenance and support for existing applications, including bug fixing, troubleshooting, and enhancements.
• Provides technical support at systems application level, ensuring timely resolution of issues and minimizing downtime.
• Implements proactive measures to identify and address potential application-level issues, conducting regular application and performance checks.
• Monitors service level agreements (SLAs) for application support, ensuring compliance and customer satisfaction.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to address user feedback and improve application functionality.
• Monitors and plans for application-level End-of-Life replacement, upgrades or retention with acceptable mitigations.

Application Development and Implementation

• Participates in the implementation, administration and maintenance of application systems, thereby ensuring alignment with business requirements.
• Develops and implements policies and procedures relevant to the ongoing maintenance of systems applications.
• Implements best practices for application management, deployment, and support.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration of applications with existing systems and infrastructure.
• Manages application-level upgrades, enhancements, and patches, coordinating with vendors and internal teams.

Audit Reviews and Requests

• Participates in all types of audit reviews in respect of IMAL and supplementary applications
• Receives audit requirements per review section from internal and external auditors
• Provides supporting data and reports for each requirement/review sections for onward submission to Auditors
• Ensures that all internal reviews are carried out timeously in respect of IMAL and supplementary applications
• Meets with auditors to address any query emanating from the review documents provided and auditors submit finalized management report
• Addresses and actions items that have been reported on the management report and provides management with feedback of the items raised at the various committee levels

Business Continuity Plan & Disaster Recover Planning

• Plans for disaster recovery within systems application, ensuring that IT DRP requirements in respect of the supported applications are sufficiently covered within IT DR plans.
• Aids in the development of Business Continuity, DR and HA plans for the specified support areas.
• Conducts reviews of the new and existing systems applications for DRP purposes.
• Support applicable business units to ensure that the DRP requirements are covered from a systems application perspective.
• Oversees and supervises the coordination of User Acceptance testing for systems application with the respective Business units.
• Ensures that the Core Banking environment and supplementary systems application are restored and accessible within the defined Recovery Time / Recovery Point objectives as per the DRP/BCP.
• Documents and reports on errors / issues encountered during DR and HA switching for the applicable systems application.

General

• Draft policies, procedures, standards and guidelines with regards to Core Banking application and supplementary applications
• Reviews and updates existing policies and procedures when required.
• Assists the Information Technology department as and when required.
• Assists with other IT related queries that are received and resolved timeously.
• Ensure Change Controls are enforced for all supported systems application.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS

• A degree or diploma in Information Systems
• Systems Support Accreditation
• Business Management qualification would be an advantage
• MCSE (Engineer) qualifications would be an added advantage

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• A minimum of 3-5 years’ experience with implementation, administration and support of systems within a banking or similar financial institution