Senior Credit Underwriter will underwrite all SME, Mid-Corporate and Large Corporate lending applications that require manual underwriting within the Industry Sector. You will also be responsible for ensuring lending remains within Risk Appetite and that performance is maintained within agreed target loan loss levels. In addition, you will work with the Head of Credit Risk Analytics and Chief Risk Officer to continually assess and define lending thresholds and parameters to ensure a balanced risk-based approach that also supports business growth objectives. Reporting to the Head of Credit Risk Analytics you will also be expected to continually innovate and identify areas of risk and opportunity within your portfolio, leveraging key data sources and indicators, whilst also leveraging your subjective matter expertise to ensure effective on-going credit risk management of the portfolio.
You will also work closely with a range of business partners, including Sales, Product and Data Engineering teams to support new strategic product initiatives to drive the growth objectives of the business.
Key Responsibilities
Education and adoption of best practices in credit analysis, underwriting and monitoring, including the end-to-end underwriting process, right from early lending discussions with Sales teams to the development of credit approval memos for senior management and/or risk committee approval forums..
Detailed review and due diligence of lending applications, including financial analysis, business projection modelling and viability, stress testing and other in-depth analysis required to support the sanctioning of large-ticket loans.
Responsible for the monitoring and portfolio health of the sector and conducting regular credit reviews and ad-hoc deep-dives to continually assess portfolio performance.
Drive positive change in the maturity of the underwriting framework and strategy..
Continual interaction with a broad range of functions and stakeholders to drive credit risk maturity across the business.
Facilitating Risk initiatives and pilots by reviewing credit data.
Conducting periodic reviews of individual bad debts.
Requirements
Significant experience underwriting SME and Large Corporate loans likely gained from a leading Financial Institution within Nigeria and primarily for businesses within the financial industry sector (must have).
Highly experienced in the end-to-end underwriting process for large ticket loans up to 5Bn NGN (must have).
Expert in the financial assessment of SME and Large Corporates using a broad range of data sources (e.g. Financials, Audited Accounts and Bank Statements etc.).
Expert in understanding headwinds and opportunities within the industry sector and must have detailed knowledge of macroeconomic and regulatory factors impacting this sector.
Experienced in the assessment of collateral and covenants to mitigate risk across secured and unsecured lending.
Strong awareness of Compliance and the Regulatory environment within Nigeria.
Demonstrable experience of underwriting best practice and standards.
Relevant Skills
Significant expertise underwriting large ticket (up-to 5Bn NGN) SME/Large-Corporate loans within Nigeria in the industry sector (essential).
Diligence and strong attention to detail.
Data driven and logical thinker.
Strong analytical skills
Excellent communication skills (verbal and written).
An ability to work autonomously
An ability to use an analytical approach to problem-solving