Title:  Head: Fraud Prevention and Detection

REUISTION DETAILS

REQ 146706 Thembi Mtshali 

Location: Johannesburg

Closing date : 15 July 2026

Job Family

Risk, Audit and Compliance

Career Stream

Forensics

Leadership Pipeline

Manage Managers (MM)

Job Purpose

To provide enterprise leadership, strategic direction, and governance oversight for fraud prevention and detection across internal, digital banking, and card fraud environments, strengthening control effectiveness and ensuring fraud risks are proactively identified, managed, and mitigated to protect the organisation from financial, regulatory, and reputational risk.

Job Responsibilities

Fraud Operations Oversight and Performance Governance
•    Lead and manage fraud detection teams across internal, digital banking, and card fraud environments.
•    Provide oversight of fraud operational performance frameworks, including alert handling, case management, and response effectiveness across fraud environments.
•    Drive accountability for service levels, turnaround times, and quality of investigations.
•    Ensure the operating model, resource deployment, and capability capacity are aligned to fraud risk exposure, service requirements, and strategic priorities.

Fraud Detection Strategy and Optimisation
•    Provide strategic direction and governance over fraud detection thresholds, rules, and monitoring parameters to ensure effectiveness and responsiveness to evolving fraud risks.
•    Ensure detection frameworks are continuously reviewed and optimised based on fraud trends, control performance insights, and operational intelligence.
•    Oversee daily fraud reporting and ensure timely escalation of emerging risks or abnormal patterns.
•    Actively manage the balance between detection effectiveness and false positives to support both risk management and customer experience.

Fraud Prevention Enablement and Control Effectiveness
•    Direct the design, enablement, and optimisation of fraud prevention controls across products and channels.
•    Ensure preventative measures remain effective through ongoing monitoring and operational review.
•    Enable agile control refinement in response to emerging fraud typologies, changing attack vectors, and control performance insights.

Future-Proofing
•    Champion the identification and assessment of emerging fraud risks, including those arising from AI, digital ecosystems, and evolving criminal methodologies.
•    Identify emerging fraud modus operandi (MOs) and perform root cause analysis on incidents, ensuring key findings are formally escalated and shared with GFCFS Investigations to support deeper investigation, disruption actions, and continuous improvement of controls.
•    Establish and embed robust, industry-aligned frameworks for ongoing fraud risk assessment and response.
•    Leverage data, analytics, and intelligence to generate actionable insights and continuously strengthen prevention, detection, and mitigation strategies.

Job Responsibilities Continue

People Leadership & Culture
•    Provide strategic leadership to multidisciplinary fraud teams, ensuring alignment to enterprise objectives.
•    Build and sustain a high-performing, inclusive, and values-driven culture that supports talent attraction, development, and retention in line with the division’s transformation agenda.
•    Drive leadership capability, accountability, and continuous improvement across teams to ensure optimal performance and organisational impact.

Stakeholder Management
•    Establish and lead strategic industry and cross-functional networks to enhance collaboration and intelligence-sharing across the fraud risk ecosystem.
•    Build and sustain strong partnerships with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure aligned, integrated, and value-driven delivery of fraud prevention and detection initiatives.
•    Provide stakeholder oversight, proactively managing expectations and fostering trusted, long-term relationships that enable strategic outcomes and organisational impact.

Risk Assessments, Governance & Compliance
•    Provide strategic oversight of enterprise-wide fraud risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities across products, processes, and systems.
•    Define and continuously enhance fraud frameworks, standards, and controls to ensure effective risk mitigation and minimise financial, regulatory, and reputational exposure.
•    Oversee the design and implementation of fit-for-purpose controls aligned to the Bank’s risk appetite, balancing risk management with client experience and operational efficiency.
•    Establish and oversee a coordinated assurance framework to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of fraud controls.
•    Ensure continuous audit readiness through robust control testing, issue remediation, and alignment with internal and external audit expectations.
•    Ensure full alignment of fraud risk practices with enterprise risk frameworks and applicable legislative and regulatory requirements.
•    Maintain a strong compliance culture through proactive monitoring, governance, and engagement with regulatory developments.

Essential Qualifications

Essential: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business, Criminal Justice, Law or other relevant tertiary qualification
Preferred:  MBA or Master’s degree 

Minimum Experience Level

 Essential: 10+ years’ experience in fraud risk management, fraud prevention and detection, financial crime, or related risk disciplines, including significant leadership experience in complex, large-scale financial services environments.
 Preferred: Experience leading multidisciplinary teams across fraud operations, analytics, governance, and risk functions within a highly regulated environment.

Technical Skills

Skill    Proficiency Level    Skill    Proficiency Level

• 
  Risk, Governance & Controls    Advanced  
•  Fraud Strategy and Control Optimisation    Advanced
• 
  Fraud Risk Management    Advanced    
• Fraud Detection Architecture / Monitoring Frameworks    Advanced
• 
  Financial Crime and Regulatory Knowledge    Advanced    
• Enterprise Risk Governance    Advanced
• 
  Data and Analytics    Advanced    
• Regulatory Compliance and Audit Readiness    Advanced
• 
  Stakeholder and Industry Engagement    Advanced    
• People Leadership and Capability Development    Advanced

Behavioural Competencies

Strategic Thinking – 20% 
Change Leadership – 15% 
Innovation – 10% 
Strategic Influence – 20% 
Communication Skills – 15% 
Leading Teams – 20%