Head of Credit Risk
Salary - depending on experience plus benefits
Manchester
As the Head of Credit Risk of the business, the successful candidate will play a pivotal role in shaping the risk management strategy; ensuring the responsible underwriting of loans, delivering good outcomes for our customers and safeguarding the financial health of the firm. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, you will lead a dedicated risk management function and collaborate with various departments to strike a balance between the customer's needs and outcomes, commercial aims and risk mitigation.
Key Responsibilities:
Risk Strategy and Governance:
- Develop and implement a comprehensive risk management strategy aligned with the business objectives.
- Establish and enforce risk policies, procedures, and standards to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry best practices.
- Collaborate with the executive leadership of the Business to communicate risk tolerance and risk appetite across the organisation.
- Support the business aspirations for asset growth with a balanced approach to asset quality and risk reward.
Underwriting Oversight:
- Oversee the underwriting process to ensure thorough evaluation and assessment of loan applications.
- Ensure that the risks of lending proposals submitted are properly identified, assessed and mitigated appropriately.
- Implement and enhance underwriting models, analytics, and decision-making tools to optimise risk-adjusted returns.
Credit Risk Management:
- Develop and maintain credit risk models to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers.
- Establish risk-based pricing strategies to balance profitability with risk exposure.
- Collaborate with the credit risk team to monitor portfolio performance and initiate proactive measures to mitigate credit losses.
- Be accountable for credit decisions and identify signs of stress to minimise the company's exposure to bad and doubtful debt.
- Proactively review and recommend improvements to credit policy. With delivery through continuous scorecard development.
- Delivery of process, procedure and systems that can deliver market leading SLAs - as set out by the CEO.
Scorecard:
- Develop, build and manage the Organisations' credit risk scorecard.
- Refine the credit risk model through the scorecard lifecycle.
- Develop champion challenge models in life to ensure continued "best customer outcomes".
Compliance and Regulatory Affairs:
- Stay abreast of relevant regulatory changes and ensure the lending business is following all applicable laws and regulations.
- Maintain a deep and thorough understanding of Consumer Duty, notably delivering good customer outcomes and fair value.
Stress Testing and Scenario Analysis:
- Conduct stress testing and scenario analysis to assess the resilience of the lending portfolio under various economic conditions.
- Develop contingency plans and risk mitigation strategies based on stress test results.
Cross-functional Collaboration:
- Work collaboratively with other business units such as finance, operations, and technology to integrate effective risk management strategies and controls into business processes.
- Provide risk insights and recommendations to support strategic decision-making.
Team Leadership and Development:
- Training of 1st line team and ongoing oversight of competency, including talent development.
- 2nd line defence responsibilities, including periodic 1st line audit.
Vendor management and selection:
- Management of lending operations, including application processing, customer onboarding, customer checks, proposal generation, underwriting (including affordability assessments), pay-outs, arrears and forbearance management, and bad debts.
- Managing the risk of lending in accordance with the Firm's risk appetite, and the associated frameworks.
Skills and attributes:
- Analytical thinker, with deep understanding of credit profiles, experienced in underwriting with the ability to run a team of UW, ability to build and maintain complex credit scorecards.
- Ability to run a risk-based pricing model.
- An inclusive, transparent, mentor, who strives for continuous improvement.
Contact Vicky for more information.