Head of Credit Risk

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.