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