Head of Risk - Consumer Loans (Nigeria)

FairMoney is a credit-led mobile bank for emerging markets. The company was launched in 2017, operates in Nigeria & Zambia & Uganda, and raised close to €50m from global investors like Tiger Global, DST & Flourish Ventures.
Watch the way FairMoney is building Africa's money story here

🏦 Role Overview

We are seeking a Head of Risk (Consumer Loans - Nigeria) to lead the credit underwriting and risk operations for our newly launched Consumer Loans product.

The goal is to maintain a low-risk portfolio through a blend of digital processes and manual verification layers across contact, address, income, and employment checks.

This role is critical to ensuring credit quality, fraud prevention, and operational excellence in Nigeria — while collaborating closely with product, tech, data science, and central risk teams to build a scalable and compliant lending engine.

🎯 Core Mission

To design, implement, and oversee a manual and semi-automated underwriting framework that ensures:

• Robust credit and fraud checks across all consumer loan applications.
• Compliance with internal risk appetite and ECL/GP targets.
• Seamless integration between operational verification and product automation.
  

🧩 Key Responsibilities

• Credit Underwriting Leadership
  • Own the credit underwriting operations for Consumer Loans in Nigeria
  • Supervise and mentor a team of manual underwriters, ensuring consistent decision quality and SLA adherence
  • Oversee manual verifications for:
    • Contact verification (confirm customer reachability)
    • Address verification (physical validation of declared residence)
    • Reference verification (cross-checking contact references)
    • Income verification (bank statements, salary inflows, stability)
    • Employment verification (payslips, HR/employer confirmation)
  • Review bureau reports, bank statements, and internal data for red flags or inconsistencies
  • Establish clear decline and escalation rules for suspicious or non-compliant applications
• Employer Risk Ranking System
  • Develop and maintain an Employer Risk Ranking Framework:
    • Rank employers from low-risk (e.g., government, large corporates) to high-risk (e.g., small businesses, informal employers)
    • Continuously refine based on observed loan performance and repayment patterns
    • Collaborate with data science to encode the framework into automated decision models
• Risk Monitoring & Portfolio Oversight
  • Track and maintain portfolio performance against risk appetite (FPD, DPD, roll rates, loss rates)
  • Identify trends and root causes behind performance deviations
  • Recommend product, policy, or pricing adjustments to ensure healthy unit economics and portfolio profitability
  • Collaborate with central risk and data science to enhance predictive models and automation rules
• Fraud Detection & Prevention
  • Implement rules-based and manual fraud detection checks
  • Define and evolve guardrails to prevent identity fraud, bad-intent borrowing, or syndicate activity
  • Ensure underwriters actively screen for behavioral red flags and maintain internal fraud databases
  • Work with central fraud, tech, and KYC teams to improve system-based prevention (e.g., device linking, document fraud detection)
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with Product, Tech, Credit Risk, and Data Science to:
    • Design scalable verification workflows
    • Build automation tools for risk checks
    • Align on performance metrics and model integration
  • Provide local market insights to global and regional teams to prevent local pitfalls and regulatory blind spots
• Governance & Reporting
  • Maintain operational risk controls and decision logs
  • Report on daily/weekly portfolio trends, underwriting productivity, and fraud metrics
  • Participate in risk review meetings and credit committee discussions
  • Ensure all operations comply with CBN guidelines and internal credit policy
    

Requirements
🧠 Ideal Candidate Profile

• Experience
  • 7-10 years in credit underwriting, portfolio risk, or consumer lending operations
  • Proven experience leading manual underwriting for large-ticket, unsecured loans
  • Demonstrated ability to balance credit quality vs growth
  • Exposure to bureau data, income verification, and fraud detection frameworks
• Skills & Attributes
  • Strong understanding of consumer lending economics, ECL/GP drivers, and affordability assessment
  • High analytical ability; able to interpret bank statements, bureau reports, and financial indicators
  • Excellent leadership and communication skills — able to build and manage a results-driven underwriting team
  • Deep familiarity with Nigerian credit market dynamics and local fraud patterns
  • Comfortable collaborating across tech and non-tech teams to improve decision systems
    

🎓 Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Economics, Business Administration, or related field
• Advanced degree or professional certification (e.g., CIBN, ACIB, CFA, FRM) is an advantage
  

💡 Key Outcomes / Success Metrics

• Portfolio FPD and DPD performance within defined risk appetite
• Decline accuracy (low false positives; minimal missed fraud cases)
• Efficient verification turnaround time (TAT)
• Employer risk ranking and manual underwriting accuracy
• Contribution to model calibration and automation improvements
  

🌍 Location

• Lagos, Nigeria (with national field verification oversight)
  

💬 Why Join Us

• Be part of a fast-growing digital bank redefining access to consumer finance in Nigeria
• Lead the foundational credit operations for our flagship Consumer Loans product
• Collaborate with world-class product and data teams shaping the future of responsible lending
  

Benefits

• Private Health Insurance
• Pension Plan
• Training & Development
• Remote work
• Paid Time Off

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