Finance Director — India and Africa Payments Continuity

The mandate

The regional finance director role sits above payments liquidity and financial reporting routines that are being consolidated. Local teams can process their own records, but settlement exposures, capital availability and cross-border balances require a single director-level decision owner. The interim must connect these matters without assuming that a regional finance title grants authority over every licensed payment entity.

The bridge starts on 19 October 2026 and lasts twelve months. Mumbai is the primary base, with scheduled India operating reviews and remote Africa finance interfaces; overseas visits require a documented agenda and advance approval. A permanent regional finance appointment is sought in parallel, and any extension must identify the specific handover gap rather than silently extending coverage.

At completion, settlement-related balances must reconcile to operating evidence, the liquidity forecast must distinguish entity-accessible cash from restricted funds, and regional reporting must show an approved basis for cross-border adjustments. The successor must lead a liquidity review, reproduce the management reporting bridge and receive every unresolved regulatory or intercompany issue. The retained team should know which decisions belong locally and which need regional approval.

The director may approve finance operating controls, planning assumptions and cash priorities within existing delegations. Movement of restricted customer funds, new borrowing, permanent leadership recruitment and changes to regulated capital policy are prohibited without proper authorisation. Local statutory and regulatory officers retain sign-off. Payments above ₹40 lakh outside the approved operating plan require the regional CFO's approval, even when a settlement deadline creates pressure.

Fundraising execution, payment-product engineering and regulatory licence applications are outside the bridge. Its finance remit includes challenging settlement economics, safeguarding reporting completeness and distinguishing genuine liquidity improvement from timing shifts between entities. The director must make uncertainty visible to executives while respecting local professional advice and the legal limits on cash movement.

What you will own

• Approve an entity-aware liquidity view separating operating cash, restricted balances and settlement commitments before executives act on the reported regional total.
• Resolve settlement-reconciliation priorities by materiality and timing risk, assigning evidence owners and escalation thresholds rather than accepting unexplained ageing as normal.
• Set management reporting adjustments with documented accounting and entity bases, leaving local statutory and regulatory conclusions to appointed officers under documented regional approval limits.
• Challenge capital and treasury assumptions against actual availability constraints, escalating proposed cross-border movement through existing finance and legal approval routes.
• Authorize forecast confidence classifications for payment volumes, fees and operating costs so growth assumptions cannot conceal unfunded cash requirements at entity or regional level.
• Transfer the regional finance decision register and reporting cycle through a successor-led review that demonstrates local ownership and reproducible cross-border reconciliations.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate genuine director-level finance accountability in payments, fintech or related technology services, supported by a chronological career record rather than an assumed tenure threshold. Describe the decisions you personally held, your reporting relationships and a liquidity or control intervention where your authority and resulting financial outcome can be independently verified.
• Show practical settlement, treasury and capital-planning knowledge across more than one jurisdiction. Provide a case where reported cash was not freely deployable, explain the restriction or settlement dependency and identify the approved action you took. Candidates must distinguish entity cash governance from unrestricted group treasury discretion.
• Bring recognised accounting capability, including US GAAP or comparable international reporting interfaces and disciplined local-policy collaboration. Evidence should include a regional adjustment or reconciliation you defended, the underlying operating records and the local specialist judgement you relied on rather than replacing.
• Prove leadership of geographically distributed finance counterparts and effective successor transfer. Explain how you resolved a local-versus-regional disagreement, preserved regulated-signatory boundaries and made reporting repeatable for retained owners. Supply a transfer example in which the successor reconciled a market-level liquidity constraint to the regional finance view and identified the approval needed before capital could move.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 14 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-INT-2026-IND-46.