Deputy Head, Underwriting At Rosabon Financial Services
Rosabon Financial Services
full-time
Job Summary
The Deputy Head, Underwriting will support the Head of Underwriting in managing the organisation's underwriting function across its three core business lines: loans (personal, business and salary-backed lending), investment products, and asset financing/asset-backed facilities.
The role is responsible for ensuring that credit and investment applications are reviewed accurately, objectively, and in line with credit/investment policy, risk appetite, approval limits, regulatory requirements, and business objectives.
The role holder will provide technical leadership to the underwriting team, review complex and high-value applications, monitor portfolio quality, identify fraud and documentation risks, and support responsible business growth through sound credit and investment decision-making.
Key Responsibilities
Underwriting Leadership:
Support the Head of Underwriting in supervising daily underwriting activities and ensuring timely, accurate, and policy-compliant credit and investment decisions.
Provide guidance to underwriters and credit/investment analysts on complex, high-value, borderline, or exceptional applications.
Review underwriting recommendations before escalation to senior management, the Credit/Investment Committee, or other approval authorities.
Ensure underwriting processes support both portfolio quality and business turnaround-time expectations.
Credit Appraisal and Risk Assessment:
Assess the creditworthiness of individual, business, and salary-backed loan customers.
Review income, bank statements, employment records, business cash flow, credit bureau reports, debt obligations, collateral, guarantors, and supporting documents.
Evaluate repayment capacity, affordability, customer behaviour, sector risk, asset risk, and overall credit risk.
Recommend approval, decline, restructuring, additional documentation, or escalation based on risk assessment.
Loan Underwriting:
Underwrite personal loans, business support loans, salary-backed loans, and other lending products within the organisation's product suite.
Ensure each product is assessed according to its specific risk characteristics, repayment source, documentation requirements, and security structure.
Recommend appropriate facility structure, tenor, repayment plan, collateral, guarantor support, insurance, or approval conditions.
Investment Underwriting and Appraisal:
Review and appraise investment proposals and placements, assessing counterparty/issuer credit quality, sector and market risk, and alignment with the organisation's investment risk appetite and mandate.
Evaluate the structure, tenor, expected return, security/collateral (where applicable), and exit terms of investment transactions before recommendation for approval.
Work with the Investment/Treasury team to ensure investment underwriting decisions are consistent with the organisation's liquidity, concentration, and regulatory limits (including applicable CBN and, where relevant, SEC requirements).
Escalate investment proposals that fall outside approved risk appetite or delegated authority to the appropriate committee.
Asset Financing Underwriting:
Underwrite asset-backed and asset finance facilities, including assessment of the underlying asset's value, marketability, and adequacy as security.
Ensure asset valuation, insurance, perfection of security/collateral, and ownership verification are completed before disbursement.
Recommend facility structure, repayment plan, and risk mitigants appropriate to the asset class being financed.
Credit and Investment Policy Compliance and Governance:
Ensure all underwriting decisions comply with approved credit/investment policy, product guidelines, approval limits, risk appetite, and internal control standards.
Track and document policy exceptions, approval conditions, and credit/investment decision rationales.
Support internal audit, compliance reviews, credit file reviews, and management assurance exercises.
Recommend improvements to credit/investment policies, underwriting checklists, scorecards, approval templates, and exception management processes.
Portfolio Quality and Risk Monitoring:
Monitor portfolio performance across loans, investments, and asset finance facilities, identifying early warning signs such as missed payments, early delinquency, restructuring trends, sector stress, and documentation gaps.
Analyse default and non-performance patterns and provide feedback to improve underwriting standards.
Work with Credit Risk, Collections, Recovery, and Portfolio Monitoring teams to reduce credit and investment losses and strengthen portfolio quality.
Recommend changes to underwriting criteria where specific products, sectors, or customer segments show increased risk.
Fraud Detection and Documentation Control:
Identify red flags such as forged documents, manipulated bank statements, fake employment or business records, identity mismatches, duplicate applications, and undisclosed liabilities.
Ensure verification of employment, income, business address, guarantors, collateral, asset ownership, counterparty identity, and customer identity.
Confirm that loan agreements, investment agreements, offer letters, repayment mandates, guarantor forms, collateral documents, and insurance documents are complete before disbursement.
Maintain records of fraud attempts, documentation defects, and recurring control weaknesses.
Team Management and Capability Building
Supervise, coach, and mentor underwriting officers and credit/investment analysts.
Set performance expectations around decision quality, productivity, turnaround time, compliance, and file documentation.
Conduct regular file reviews and provide feedback to improve underwriting consistency.
Train team members on credit and investment analysis, bank statement review, cash flow analysis, fraud detection, credit bureau interpretation, policy application, and documentation review.
Stakeholder Management:
Partner with Sales, Business Development, Investment/Treasury, Credit Risk, Operations, Legal, Compliance, Collections, Recovery, Technology, and Data teams.
Advise business teams on credit and investment requirements, approval conditions, customer/counterparty eligibility, documentation expectations, and risk concerns.
Present credit and investment cases, risk observations, portfolio trends, and policy recommendations to senior management or the Credit/Investment Committee where required.
Reporting and Management Information:
Prepare underwriting reports covering application volumes, approvals, declines, pending applications, turnaround time, policy exceptions, fraud alerts, documentation gaps, and portfolio quality across loans, investments, and asset finance.
Track underwriter productivity, file quality, approval-to-disbursement conversion, and application rework levels.
Provide data-driven recommendations to improve underwriting efficiency, risk controls, and decision quality.
Key Deliverables
Timely and accurate review of loan, investment, and asset finance applications.
Strong underwriting governance and policy compliance across all three product lines.
Improved credit and investment decision quality and reduced documentation gaps.
Portfolio quality reports highlighting delinquency, default, and underwriting risk trends.
Properly maintained policy exception and fraud registers.
Product-specific underwriting standards and checklists for loans, investments, and asset finance.
Qualifications and Requirements
Education:
Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, Statistics, or a related field.
A Master's Degree in Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, Economics, or a related field is an added advantage.
Experience:
4 - 6 years' experience in credit underwriting, credit risk management, loan review, commercial
lending, retail lending, investment appraisal, asset finance, or financial services risk management.
At least 2 - 5 years of experience in a supervisory, team lead, or management role.
Experience in a bank, finance company, asset finance company, investment firm, microfinance bank, fintech lender, or other non-bank financial institution is required.
Experience underwriting personal loans, business/salary-backed loans, investment placements, or asset-backed lending is highly desirable.
Technical Knowledge:
Strong knowledge of credit underwriting, credit and investment risk assessment, loan and investment structuring, asset finance, portfolio monitoring, and credit governance.
Strong ability to analyse bank statements, cash flows, financial statements, affordability, credit bureau reports, collateral, guarantors, and repayment/return capacity.
Good understanding of KYC, AML, customer/counterparty due diligence, loan and investment documentation, approval matrices, exception management, and Nigerian financial services lending and investment practices (including applicable CBN and SEC requirements).
Certifications:
Professional certification in credit risk, banking, finance, accounting, or risk management is desirable.
Relevant certifications may include CIBN, Credit Risk Management certification, ICAN, ACCA, CFA, FRM, or training in loan underwriting, investment appraisal, asset finance, credit analysis, fraud detection, or portfolio risk management.