Financial Accountant (Fintech/StartUp/Mobile Payments)

Our client is an innovative pay-as-you-go solar startup. They make life better for everyday households in Africa where they build amazing tech to help bring access to energy, internet and opportunity to people who otherwise wouldn’t. Our client is a dynamic, hardworking team that values flexibility and focuses on results over office hours. They are resourceful and budget-conscious, whether they are traveling or working. They believe in resilience, self-reliance, and long-term sustainability. With our client your career growth is driven by your ambitions, from expanding your role to exploring new areas of the business.

 

Role Overview

As a Financial Accountant with our client, you will strengthen their Finance & Legal operating capacity by providing a capable, technically grounded set of hands across audit support, tax support, statutory support, day-to-day finance execution and practical AI-enabled process improvement.

  

This is a hands-on generalist role for someone who is early in their career but already has strong accounting and finance foundations. You will help our client run a more controlled, compliant and scalable finance function across multiple African markets. You’ll work across legal entities, countries, advisers and internal teams to keep audits, filings, documentation, payment workflows and recurring finance processes moving. They are also looking for someone who is comfortable using AI tools to make finance work more scalable — either through existing practical proficiency in building tools, automations and better operating systems, or through a strong curiosity and enthusiasm to learn this deeply.

  

Job Type: Full Time/Permanent

Location: Cape Town

Workplace: Onsite

  

Requirements

• Education: Accounting, finance, business, economics or related degree.
• Professional background: CA(SA), ACCA, CIMA, CPA, articles, audit background or equivalent professional training is strongly preferred. A recently qualified CA, CIMA or similar profile would be a strong fit.
• Experience: 0-2 years of relevant post-training experience in audit, financial reporting, tax, governance, regulatory, financial services, fintech, lending, emerging markets or a multi-entity group environment. Financial Services background or experience is preferable.
• Technical Skills: Strong accounting and finance foundations; comfort with audit requests, reconciliations, filings, entity records, controls, financial documentation and spreadsheets. Familiarity with VAT, withholding tax, income tax, transfer pricing, statutory compliance or cross-border finance topics is advantageous.
• AI and systems capability: Practical comfort with AI tools, automation and modern productivity systems. Ideally, you have used AI personally or professionally to build useful tools, structure documentation, summarise information, analyse data, improve trackers, automate repeatable workflows or create more scalable operating systems. If you are not already highly proficient, you should be genuinely enthusiastic about becoming highly capable in this area and applying it to real Finance problems.
• Execution Skills: Highly organised and reliable, with the ability to manage many small moving pieces, define owners, set deadlines, track progress and escalate blockers.
• Communication: Clear and concise written communicator who can translate messy finance, adviser and internal inputs into structured summaries, trackers and action plans.
• Mindset: High ownership, strong bias to action, willingness to do unglamorous but important work, curiosity about how the business works, and motivation to build better finance infrastructure for a growing African asset-financing business. You should be excited by the opportunity to use technology and AI to build scalable, enduring Finance systems rather than simply repeating manual tasks.

     

Responsibilities

• Support audits, tax and statutory work: Help coordinate audit requests, tax submissions, statutory filings, governance records and supporting documentation across our client’s group entities. You’ll make sure requests are logged, owners are clear, evidence is gathered, advisers are followed up and deadlines are visible.
• Bring structure to messy finance workstreams: Build and maintain practical trackers, calendars, checklists and document repositories for recurring Finance & Legal obligations. You’ll help turn scattered email threads, adviser comments and internal discussions into clear action plans.
• Improve finance operations: Support day-to-day finance workflows including payment processes, approval flows, reconciliation support, documentation packs, month-end support and recurring reporting tasks. You’ll be expected to spot opportunities to make these processes cleaner and more repeatable.
• Use AI to build scalable systems: Apply AI tools and automation thoughtfully within the Finance function — for example to summarise messy information, improve trackers, draft and maintain reusable documentation, build checklists, automate repeatable workflows, create better templates, and reduce manual rework.
• Coordinate across countries and advisers: Work with Finance team members, country owners, auditors, tax advisers, legal advisers, accountants and payment providers. You’ll need to follow up persistently, ask clear questions, and escalate blockers early.
• Support cross-border finance topics: Assist with practical work around intercompany balances, entity funding flows, FX exposure, upstreaming constraints, management recharges and related-party documentation, while escalating specialist judgement calls to senior finance leaders or external advisers.
• Own commercial outcomes: Being in Finance with our client is not about sitting behind a spreadsheet. You’ll be expected to understand how finance, tax, governance and compliance work affects the real business, and to help make practical things happen.

  

Why work with our client

Our client offers the stability of a large company with the culture of a tight-knit start-up. While our client employs more than 1,000 people across the continent, the core management team in Cape Town, South Africa is an agile, talented group of less than 30. No matter your age or level of experience, you'll be given large responsibilities from Day 1 and expected to be a self-starter and self-teacher. While expectations are high, so is the level of support: we foster a culture where colleagues from across the business are eager to support and learn from one another.

  

Additional benefits:

• Great offices at the V&A Waterfront
• Opportunity to participate in our client’s ESOP within your first year
• Exciting travel to the countries we operate in
• Hybrid flexibility: spend at least half your time at office, you decide when
• Annual team retreats
• Flexible paid time off