Darren Li Shing Fong

Lead a team of Professional Accountants to deliver on the following:

• General Ledger Accounting for Bank and Group
• Quality and Timely Financial Reporting to Regulatory and Statutory bodies
• Embed a strong financial control environment on the financials
• Technical Accounting guidance to Finance teams across the group and ensure compliance to IFRS and Regulatory guidelines
• Partner with the Finance teams across the group for Financial Reporting alignment and consolidation
• Manage relationship with key Finance external stakeholders at Domestic and International level
• Optimize accounting and reporting processes with automated or integrated tools
• Contribute to Group projects, Strategy and Budget
• Support on complex products for sophisticated areas

Collaborate with senior management to deliver on yearly key strategic objectives

Creating opportunities for the team to enable career growth and onboarding new talent to keep a high level of efficiency in the team

• Maintained a strong control environment within the Financial Control space
• Ensuring a strong and reliable support to the Regional Office for Group and Regulatory Reporting
• Ensuring timely and accurate reporting to the Central Bank/Tax Authority while having strong engagement with the regulators to align expectation
• Manage a strong team of professionals and onboarding new talent to keep a high level of efficiency in the team
• Strived for efficiency via automation of Finance processes and preparation of regulatory returns
• Ensuring an excellent liaison with internal and external auditors to manage control issues and issuing IFRS compliant Financial Statements

• Partnering the Treasury and Markets Functions by ensuring the business operate within a control environment while achieving its target.
• Implementation of Front Arena Trading system within the Product Control space and maintaining control over the numbers flowing out of the system through the DMR (Daily & Monthly Reconciliation) system.
• Reporting of daily Profit & Loss and explaining material variances as well as providing comments the Treasury performance
• Ensuring compliance with the Group Product Control policies and adhering to the daily controls
• Monitoring the Market Risk aspects of the bank through stress testing scenarios and ensuring adequate limits set in place to mitigate risks due to Foreign Exchange and Interest Rates.
• Participating in the Assets & Liabilities Committee to contribute in the strategy of the bank and develop stress testing scenarios.
• Providing guidance and support on technical accounting aspects of the Treasury and Markets products
• Planning and performing Risk & Control Assessments
• Providing assistance to Group with implementation of Front Arena Trading system in other territories and strategic projects to define the go-to model for Africa
• Managing and operating the Fund Transfer Pricing model as an independent function and assisting the different business areas to define their strategy
• Review of internal processes to promote Straight-Through-Processing in order to optimize reconciliation tools and enhance the control environment
• Member of Africa Steering Committee to define the Target Operating Model for Product Control across the various businesses on the African continent

• Managing the Financial Reporting Team to deliver on Statutory Reporting, Regulatory Reporting, Group Reporting and Taxation.
• Ensuring compliance with Banking Act and relevant regulatory requirements.
• Leading the team to be the best Financial Team across Barclays Africa on several occasions.
• Dealing with the various Regulatory Officers and External auditors
• Assisting functions in maintaining a strong control environment
• Green Audit rating on compliance with Financial Group Regulatory Framework from the Barclays Group Governance team.
• Led several Finance streams in projects such as implementation of Basel II, Barclays Leasing merger and incorporation of Barclays Mauritius branch into a subsidiary.
• Successfully assisted the Barclays Seychelles Finance team to turn a qualified audit report on the Bank’s Financial Statements into a clean report in 2009.
• Building a team of high profile Accountants to assist the Finance function and the business in complying with Accounting standards and regulations.
• Meeting with Financial Control peers in Africa to exchange ideas and promote best practice in the Financial processes
• Deputizing the Finance Director as chairman of the monthly Balance Sheet Review Committee to ensure effective management of the Balance Sheet and controls are in place.
• Capital Management of the Bank by ensuring we have adequate level of capital to cover for banking risks

• SAP implementation in Barclays Mauritius Finance
• Responsible for the Group Reporting of the bank to Regional Office
• Consolidation of Financial numbers across the functions and monitoring performance against budget
• Application of Funds Transfer Pricing mechanism across the Functional performance
• Developing young talent in the team and inculcate Accounting knowledge
• Enforcing controls in the Finance processes and setting adequate reconciliations in place
• Responsible for compliance with US GAAP, IFRS and Group Accounting policies.

• Assisting the Chief Accountant in the preparation of different reporting documents to Total Outre-Mer and management of the accounting department.
• Preparation of the annual budget.
• Preparation of the VAT and Tax returns.
• Liaising with the fiscal authorities and auditors.
• Total Outre-Mer procedures implementation.
• Submission of monthly management accounts of the group to the directors.

• Management of accounting department.
• Preparation of VAT, PAYE AND NPS returns.
• Knowledge of Pastel Accounting Software.

• Auditing, accounting and tax experience.
• Preparation of financial statements (group and company) and computation of tax.
• Audit of different clients in the sectors like hotel, investment, sugar, transport, manufacturing, petroleum, textile, construction, retail and offshore.
• Management of audit team and promoting teamwork.
• Maintaining good relationships with clients.
• Working under pressure to meet deadlines.