Head Credit Risk

About the role

The Head Credit Risk manages the programmed-based lending, merchant lending and consumer lending portfolios from a credit risk perspective. The role covers credit policy, underwriting, collection and recovery, regulatory compliance and portfolio monitoring, and includes team and departmental management.

Key responsibilities

• Define and maintain the enterprise-wide credit risk framework, translate the CRO's risk strategy into policies, underwriting standards and product programs, and build credit risk scorecard models with validation and back testing
• Ensure compliance with internal and external regulations, including ECL/IFRS 9 and prudential rules, and support regulatory examinations and audits
• Oversee credit origination, decisioning and portfolio quality, review credit proposals and challenge policy deviations
• Deliver NPL targets, provisioning and cost-of-risk objectives, and oversee the collections and recovery strategy
• Implement controls: 4-eyes principle, delegation of credit authority, process reviews, fraud checks and up-to-date policy manuals
• Monitor portfolio performance, develop early warning indicators, concentration limits, stress tests and risk-charge forecasts, and report to the CRO and risk committees
• Work with the CRO, business heads and cross-functional teams on portfolio strategy, scoring models and loan origination/collections systems
• Manage hiring, training, attrition, budget, assignments, goals, promotions and appraisals for the credit team

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Risk Management, Business Administration or a related field; Master's degree preferred
• 6-8 years of experience in traditional or digital banking or fintech in credit risk management
• Prior second-line of defence role reporting to a CRO or equivalent strongly preferred
• Experience owning credit risk governance, models, concentration and limit frameworks, provisioning and cost-of-risk oversight
• Exposure to launching new lending products, digital credit decisioning, collections and recovery outsourcing, and major policy or system transformations is an advantage

Required skills

• Hands-on experience developing and validating credit risk models
• Understanding of credit risk drivers and mitigation techniques
• Analytical skills to interpret portfolio data, delinquency and NPL trends and scoring model outputs
• Strong written and verbal communication, able to advise senior management and the Board