Finance Analyst, CTRCS Zagreb

World Bank Group•Washington, DC

50d•Onsite

About The Position

At the World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater. Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. The WBG Controller is responsible for all aspects of the financial reporting and internal control framework for IBRD and IDA, and the extensive Trust Fund/Partnership portfolio of the WB entities. It supports an appropriate fiduciary control framework and administering disbursements for Bank lending and leads the client service function for the WB's corporate expenses. Organizationally, the WBG Controller is comprised of three departments: (1) Corporate Accounting and Reporting, (2) Trust Funds and Loans, and (3) Financial Controls. In the WBG Controller, our mandate supports both internal and external clients while we focus on delivery, optimization, impact, and people & culture. CTRCS Within the WBG Controller, CTRCS – the Trust Funds and Loan Operation Client Services unit – is devoted to providing "front-end" client services and related operations to business and external clients and is organized along business lines serving the regions and global practices. The services and responsibilities of the CTRCS unit fall under three categories: regional coordination, country focal point assistance, and project-level fiduciary and portfolio management. CTRCS is currently seeking highly motivated Finance Analysts (FN) across its multiple office locations. How Your Contributions Will Help Us Achieve Our Goals The Finance Analyst (FN) plays an important role in disbursement-related activities during the implementation of a project. The FN is expected to work in close collaboration with the Senior Finance Assistants (SFAs), the Finance Officer(s) and Regional Team Leader to support task teams, operations staff, and external Borrowers. The FN's responsibilities include performing a variety of tasks, including working on a diverse range of disbursement-related issues, providing solutions, and contributing to system design and data initiatives. As a Finance Analyst, you will report to the Regional Team Lead.

Requirements

A bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or a relevant discipline is required.
Minimum of five years of relevant work experience.
Relevant knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), internal controls, and financial management.
Knowledge and application of the World Bank's Operational Policies and Procedures and how they relate to disbursements and loan portfolio management.
Ability to exercise professional judgment and appropriately interpret and apply operational policies as related to disbursements and loan portfolio management.
Willingness to travel and participate in short-term assignments.
Strong quantitative skills with superior attention to detail and numerical accuracy.
Ability to manage complex tasks, deal with rapidly shifting priorities, provide professional support to senior staff, and deliver against ambitious deadlines.
Demonstrates good understanding of risks and internal control procedures pertaining to various activities in own functional areas.
Knowledge and experience applying a risk-based approach to prioritize and manage workload, identify potential issues, and determine appropriate courses of action.
Strong client focus including good interpersonal, diplomatic, and team-building skills required for building and maintaining collaborative relationships.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain and express views and opinions clearly and confidently.
Ability to deal with sensitive and confidential information in a multi-cultural environment and build effective working relations with clients and colleagues.
Ability and willingness to work with and leverage AI, blockchain, and other innovative technologies.
Willingness to work in different time zones. Given that the team is co-located across multiple offices in different time zones and borrowers are in different countries, candidates must be willing to work in different time zones, especially in the US EST time zone, on an as-needed basis.
Demonstrate the ability to collaborate effectively across teams, disciplines, cultures, and institutional boundaries.
Responsibly leverage digital and AI-enabled tools to enhance productivity, learning, and decision-making.

Nice To Haves

Professional accounting qualification (CA, CPA, ACCA, or an equivalent professional accounting qualification) preferred.
A master's degree in a relevant discipline (such as Business Administration, Finance, or Accounting) is a plus.
Certification in systems audit (e.g., CISA) is considered a plus.
Experience with a financial institution or an accounting firm is a plus.
Experience working with financial systems, AI, and/or blockchain technology is a plus.
Big Four or equivalent public accounting experience would be advantageous.
Knowledge and experience of international development operations is a plus.
Advanced fluency in English and at least one of the following languages: Arabic, French, Portuguese, or Russian, with the ability to clearly communicate in both written and spoken forms and to conduct meetings in the referenced languages.
Bring experience working in fragile, conflict-affected, and violent (FCV) contexts and are encouraged to highlight relevant experience in their application materials, where applicable.

Responsibilities

Act as the country focal point for assigned countries in disbursement-related aspects in collaboration with the country Finance Officer.
Perform transaction processing including release of disbursements, as appropriate.
Promptly liaise with clients to resolve any potential issues or exceptions noted in the processing of transactions.
Manage project preparation, as assigned by the Finance Officers for low-risk Trust Funds, and review restructuring packages.
Monitor inactive Project Designated Accounts; engage in portfolio management activities and system updates; liaise with clients to ensure that Designated Account balances are promptly documented or refunded for orderly loan closure; and handle other tasks that may be assigned by their supervisor.
Evaluate the results of both the reviews of transactions and the portfolio management work to identify areas where borrowers have capacity constraints, and provide capacity-building to clients. This includes training end-users on how to access and interpret the Bank's online systems, tools, and data available in the data lakehouse, and how to perform their own analysis of disbursement data.
Support the design and development of system enhancements, upgrades to applications, and new systems.
Perform testing related to enhancement tasks and upgrades.
Prepare disbursement and analytical reports, including maintaining interactive dashboards, data visualizations, and reports using Power BI and other tools.
Work with various data platforms and tools such as Power BI and Advanced Excel.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify data requirements, automate reporting processes, and perform user acceptance testing for ongoing loan system modernization projects.
Serve as the bridge between business teams and the technical data engineering team to translate business needs into technical requirements and explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.