iwoca Ltd.  logo iwoca Ltd.

Head of Underwriting & Credit Analysis - Germany

Creata il 26-02-2020
Location London

Descrizione

About iwoca

iwoca is breaking down the barriers that stop Europe’s 20 million small businesses from accessing finance. Traditional bank loans have slow application processes, inflexible terms and burdensome criteria. In contrast, we use cutting-edge technology to offer flexible access to credit with a five minute application process and a decision in hours.

Since 2012, we've lent over £1 billion to over 50,000 businesses across Europe. Our customers include everything from cafés to car dealers, salons to solicitors. Along the way we have built a sophisticated technology platform, won numerous awards and grown a fun, and vibrant team.

The German business was launched in 2015 and has been our fastest-growing market (tripling in size in 2017 & 2018). We are very excited about growth prospects given our market-leading positioning.

Your role

To support this growth we’re looking for an experienced individual to take over the leadership of the underwriting function: building on what our team of c.10 credit analysts have achieved to date (we have made tens of thousands of manual decisions and lent several hundred million Euro), you will take our underwriting and credit analysis operations to the next level.

This role will combine operational and strategic elements: we’re looking for someone who understands how operational underwriting works and can identify and implement optimisation strategies to deliver fast, efficient and robust decisions. Together with Germany’s GM, COO and other senior leaders, you will ensure our Underwriting is in tune with our commercial and strategic priorities and enables us to confidently scale our operations. Your team’s efforts will seek to maximise funding volumes whilst ensuring defaults and arrears are within agreed bounds, adapting to macroeconomic developments where relevant.

Your responsibilities will include:

  • Being the commercial owner for the credit risk department, and for all business decisions involving credit risk (together with COO & GM)
  • Leveraging (new) data sources to continuously improve our decision-making, drawing on industry best-practices, iwoca’s expertise and your own understanding of the specificities of our lending operations - making sure iwoca remains at the forefront of small business underwriting through continuous process iteration
  • Ensuring iwoca has robust controls in place to proactively manage defaults and arrears, identifying risks and patterns early, and devising corrective measures where required
  • Building a close working relationship with iwoca’s Head of Portfolio Risk and the data science (analytics) team to optimise risk and portfolio management, and create a ‘bridge’ between the realities of operational underwriting, auto. Lending, scorecards, portfolio risk, etc.
  • Conceptualising, setting up and interpreting smart tests to drive procedural changes to our underwriting processes. Together with the data science team you will ensure our decisions continuously support and improve risk discrimination
  • Optimising the balance between automation / efficiency gains and accurate decision-making, working closely with the Risk teams to drive the automation of the credit risk processes and decisioning tools
  • Designing, building and implementing credit analysis processes and policies to support the introduction of new products / product developments (e.g. longer maturities, bullet loans, etc.)
  • Working closely with our Collections (Credit Control) teams to create a feedback loop that ensures we learn from defaults and past decisions
  • Ensuring all policies are documented and monitoring programmes are conducted
  • Managing and developing a team. Prioritising work and providing commercial direction to the team while managing business expectations. Note team management could also be delegated, this will depend on your strengths and preferences.

Requirements

What we’re looking for

A sharp mind, lots of drive and a desire to thrive in a fast-paced environment.

You will likely be an experienced credit risk executive and have first-hand experience in underwriting / credit analysis, ideally in the Small Business space (experience in consumer lending, credit cards, etc. will be viewed favourably too).

We are looking for someone who

  • Has experience leading the on-going development of a credit risk decision platform and loan approval processes - ideally combined with hands-on underwriting / credit analysis experience
  • Is familiar with the different datasets that feed into underwriting - you should have a good understanding of the information and metrics that are relevant to the health of a small business (and their ability to repay a loan)
  • Has had exposure to the German economy, in particular small businesses, German credit cycles and German SME lending. You should speak conversational German too
  • Is highly numerical / analytical: we eat, sleep and breathe data and you should be versed in data science to a level that enables you to confidently collaborate with and challenge our data scientists to improve our processes, scorecards, risk monitoring, etc.
  • Possesses a strong academic background, ideally having completed a quant-based degree
  • Possesses a good understanding of how scorecards are built and how underwriting processes are automated (you are not expected to build the scorecards themselves but to work closely with our Risk team to feed operational understanding into the scorecards)
  • Has gravitas to engage with your peers, managers and company leadership - you’ll need an effective balance of humility and assertiveness, be able to listen whilst knowing when to push
  • Has a good business sense to understand the financial impact of underwriting decisions and makes the right commercial decisions
  • Can thrive in the organised chaos of a maturing high-growth environment where every month needs to be a record month - you need to be able to harness this energy and turn it into positive results
  • Ideally has prior experience managing a team (team management could also be shared with our current team lead so you can focus on the ‘technical’ aspects of the role

Benefits

Your role makes a huge difference to our team and the growth of our company. By stepping up in this role you can help write the next chapter in the history of iwoca. While doing so, you will outgrow your current comfort zone, growing as a professional, a leader and a person.

In addition to these intangible benefits we also offer a competitive salary and the following:

What’s life like as an iwocan?

We all enjoy:

  • Bright, modern office spaces in Tottenham Court Road and Covent Garden
  • Two company retreats a year (in places like the French Alps or Spanish seaside)
  • Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments and yoga
  • An ever-growing number of clubs including climbing, chess, football and boxing
  • Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen
  • A paid volunteering day each year, for you to support your chosen charity

Just for you:

  • Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership
  • Share options
  • Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave
  • A workplace nursery tax benefit scheme
  • 25 days holiday per year and an extra day off on your birthday
  • Extra leave if you want to travel or study
  • Special celebrations for anniversaries and long service including sabbatical
  • Flexible working
  • Cycle-to-work scheme

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

  • Tickets to Finance & Tech conferences across Europe
  • Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers
  • A calendar of meetups we host at our office
  • Access to learning platforms like Treehouse if you want to learn to code.

This job was posted on 9th March 2020 and will expire on 9th April 2020

We take the coronavirus threat very seriously, so our team is working remotely, meaning that all our interviews will be conducted by video. We’re still actively hiring for this position and plan to set new employees up for success by being onboarded and also working remotely. Once everything goes back to normal you will then be based in our London Office.

Benefit

25 days holiday a year, plus all UK Bank holidays

25 days holi...

A smart, fun and internationally diverse team - together, we represent over 35 different nationalities

A smart, fun...

Additional leave so that you can take more time to go travelling or to study, outside of your holiday allowance

Additional l...

An additional Day Off on your Birthday

An additiona...

Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers

Company-wide...

Cycle-to-work scheme for great value bikes

Cycle-to-wor...

Enhanced maternity/paternity leave and shared parental leave

Enhanced mat...

Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen

Plenty of dr...

Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments, morning yoga and an ever-growing number of active clubs (you can set up your own!)

Pool, ping p...

Regular novelty perks such as free massages, which can be proposed by anyone in the team

Regular nove...

Stock options for all employees after 6 months within the business

Stock option...

The opportunity to give your time to support a charity of your choice, via a paid volunteering day

The opportun...

Working from the summer/ winter house twice a year

Working from...

POSIZIONE CHIUSA Candidati ora

Video