Team size: Two

Spotlight on: Building Trust and Discipline in Digital Finance

I lead the Legal, Compliance and AML function at MTC Maris (Pty) Ltd, where my team and I provide full coverage across the institution, spanning regulatory compliance, financial crime risk, contracting, governance and customer protection. I work at the point where product delivery meets supervisory expectation, so my focus is always the same, translate legal and regulatory obligations into operating mechanisms the business can run consistently, evidence properly and defend confidently.

My recent work has been heavily centred on institution-building in a regulated digital financial services environment. In practice that means building and maintaining the legal and compliance foundations that allow a licensed e-money issuer to scale responsibly, including regulatory engagement and supervisory readiness, third-party and distribution governance, agent and merchant contracting, complaints and customer outcome design, incident response, and AML controls that fit high-volume digital channels. I care about the quality of decision-making as much as the outcome, clarity of accountability, clean allocations of roles and liabilities, strong documentation, and controls that are embedded in processes rather than sitting in policy binders.

A flagship initiative has been the launch of Taamba Maris, an instant mobile credit product delivered through the Maris wallet in partnership with Letshego Micro Financial Services Namibia. The product is reported locally as Namibia’s first instant mobile credit product of its kind, built to expand access to short-term regulated credit for unbanked and underbanked customers, including those who rely on USSD rather than smartphones. My role covered the approvals and governance pathway, and the legal and compliance architecture that makes “instant credit” defensible. This included shaping the product rulebook and customer terms, structuring the contracting framework between platform and lender, defining data-sharing and consent standards, aligning KYC and credit bureau interfaces to lawful and proportionate use, and setting the operational controls that matter in reality, monitoring and reporting, audit and assurance rights, clear escalation routes, and a customer protection approach that addresses pricing transparency, repayment behaviour, complaints handling and collections conduct. The central discipline was simple, speed cannot come at the cost of fair outcomes, integrity of controls, or clear accountability.

Before joining the MTC group, I built a strong grounding in banking compliance and legal risk through roles at FirstRand Namibia and Bank Windhoek. I hold an LLB (Honours), I am currently pursuing an MBA, and I have further specialised through the University of Johannesburg’s compliance-focused programmes, including Compliance Management (2024) and Money Laundering Control. My professional thread is consistent, I build financial services that are accessible and commercially sound, and properly governed, so that inclusion is achieved through trust and discipline.

What are the most significant cases, projects and/or transactions that you and/or your legal team have recently been involved in?

My work has been centred on building legal and compliance infrastructure for a growing digital financial services institution, where the “product” is not only the customer proposition, but also the governance, controls, contracting and regulatory posture that make the proposition safe and scalable.

A flagship project has been the launch of Taamba Maris, an instant mobile credit product delivered through the Maris wallet, developed with Letshego Micro Financial Services Namibia. It has been widely reported as Namibia’s first instant mobile credit product. The legal and compliance workstream was end to end, spanning regulatory engagement and approvals for a controlled pilot, product governance and consumer protection design, and the contracting architecture across the partnership. This included structuring responsibilities across the parties, embedding customer disclosures and fair treatment measures in the product rules, aligning KYC and AML controls to a digital, USSD-led customer journey, aligning data-sharing and credit bureau checks to lawful and proportionate use, and hardwiring operational controls (monitoring, collections parameters, complaints handling, audit and reporting lines) so that speed does not come at the cost of accountability.

Beyond Taamba, much of my time has gone into designing and implementing the institution’s foundational legal, compliance and AML operating model. That includes rationalising and strengthening core agreements (agents, merchants, partners, and operational support arrangements), building practical compliance tools for the business (onboarding checklists, training and attestations, exception handling, and risk acceptance workflows), and supporting the commercial teams to scale distribution through a compliant agent-based model, while maintaining customer protection, market conduct discipline and credible regulator relationships.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

I treat a crisis as both an operational event and a governance test. The first step is disciplined triage, to establish facts, impact, customer harm risk, legal exposure, and regulatory expectations. I then move quickly to a clear decision-making structure: named owners, a single narrative of record, a contemporaneous decision log, and prioritised mitigations that protect customers and preserve system integrity.

From there, I focus on three parallel tracks. First, immediate containment and control uplift (including AML and fraud lenses). Second, communications that are accurate, timely and consistent, internally and where necessary with regulators and customers. Third, resilience actions that prevent recurrence, typically through tightened controls, refined contracts and service levels, and improved monitoring and escalation. In a regulated environment, credibility is built in the detail, being able to show what happened, what we did, what we learned, and what we changed.

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

Regulators and boards are converging on the same demand: demonstrable governance in digital finance. In practice, this means stronger expectations around outsourcing and partner risk, consumer protection by design, data governance, and evidence-based compliance, not policy alone. I also expect regulatory sandboxes and controlled pilots to remain a key pathway for innovation, but with sharper requirements for reporting, customer safeguards, and exit or scale plans.

Has AI had a meaningful impact on how your legal team works?

Yes, but mainly as a force-multiplier in operational compliance rather than a substitute for legal judgment. In our environment, value comes from better pattern detection, faster monitoring and stronger audit trails, particularly in AML, fraud and customer protection. The standard I apply is simple: AI must be explainable enough to defend decisions, governable enough to control outcomes, and documented enough to satisfy auditors and regulators.