Zonal Credit Manager

Organizational Context

Key Aspects:

• Part of the Aditya Birla Capital Limited Aditya Birla Housing Finance Limited (ABHFL) is registered with the National Housing Bank as a housing finance company under the National Housing Bank Act 1987. The company offers a complete range of housing finance solutions such as home loans home improvement and home construction loans balance transfer and top-up loans loans against property and construction finance. The company acquired its license on 9^th July 2014 and has aggressive growth plans.
• ABHFL has grown at a steady rate while reporting good asset quality despite challenges in the operating environment. While the industry is dominated by five large groups there has been an emergence of segments like Affordable and self-employed borrowers given the high potential in these segments. Despite increased focus by banks HFCs have been able to maintain their share in the mortgage market. and is poised for rapid growth and plans to grow 5X (40000 Cr) in the next 5 years. This shall take ABHFL within the top 5 percentile of HFCs in the country.

Job Context

Key Aspects:

• The Risk team provides core underwriting services fundamental to the ABHFL business health risk management and sustainability. Structured as a dual to the Sales/ Sourcing team with positions mapped against corresponding Sales roles across the organization the Risk team is responsible for necessary controls and process checks to ensure business performance and health.
• While the core responsibility for this function is to control the business via robust underwriting and risk management supporting business expansion via joint evaluation of different product/ market growth proposals with the Sales team is also an important contribution.
• The Head Risk plays a vital role in securing the organization against diverse risks in the course of business operations. This role is responsible for setting up requisite underwriting and risk management frameworks and processes for robust and efficient creditworthiness and risk assessment and consequent inputs for business decisions (loan approval/ rejection business expansion etc.)

Key Challenges

• While the ABFL Mortgages team also works with retail customers in the property space the ABHFL business is exposed to the additional Construction Risk i.e. risk from under construction projects not getting completed as planned. The Risk Team must factor for this when designing and executing control mechanisms and evaluating business proposals.
• ABHFL is in its inception phase as a company and in the midst of rapid growth. The Risk function must therefore be able to balance priorities of risk management and business growth efficiently without increasing sub-prime exposures or impacting business health and sustainability.
• The housing space is characterized by state-wise norms and business practices as well as varied interpretations of regulatory guidelines by different stakeholders. It is therefore essential for the Risk function to remain up to date on business practices/ norms across the country and work within regulatory guidelines in a manner that minimizes business risk and also supports growth objectives.

Enabling Skill Sets & Qualifications

• Critical skill sets required to meet these challenges include strong business and commercial acumen analytical skills good stakeholder management and presentation skills and team management and execution capabilities.
• Education & experience required to fulfil this profile are a CA/ MBA Finance with minimum 12 15 yrs of experience in a bank/ NBFC/ HFC of which at least recent 8 - 10 yrs experience should be in managing risk and underwriting in an HFC.

Process Efficiency

• Drive process efficiency through the team reinforcing the role of the Risk team as a business enabler without compromising on risk management and business sustainability
• Drive alignment with process-driven coordination mechanisms with Sales Operations and Technical teams by enabling open communication within and across teams in the zone for alignment on business imperatives and corresponding risk management needs
• Serve as a point of escalation and issue resolution on complex business issues liaising as required with stakeholders in Sales and Operations teams and escalating to Head Risk as required
• Ensure collection of Post disbursal documents within assigned time frame.

Risk Compliance & Control

• Monitor compliance with established risk management principles and norms as well as applicable regulatory requirements (raise potential concerns to Head Risk in advance) via periodic and need based reviews of relevant MIS reports escalation case documents etc.
• Work and ensure zonal operations are aligned with defined Maker Checker mechanism with Sales and Operations teams in a systematic and process-driven manner covering key aspects such as exception approvals collateral valuation PDD completion cheque bounce collections etc.
• Ensure minimal critical observations in Audit and to ensure all observations are resolved within specified TATs
• To identify cases under early warning signals and analyse the same.

Collection Efficiency

• Analyse delinquency trends at a zonal level and support RCMs with insights on possible drivers (such as regional economic factors industry performance etc.) and addressing mechanisms
• Implement and drive alignment with process-driven mechanisms for coordination with the Collections/ Operations team on tracking delinquency cases and driving collections efficiently and effectively
• Intervene as required on specific escalation cases for recovery and delinquency/ NPA avoidance; escalate to Head Risk as required
• Track early defaulters and skip cases and support collections team for ensuring resolutions.

Business Growth and Sustainability

• Participate in zonal business decision making and planning and institutionalize the same partnership orientation down the line setting clarity on the context for Risk as a dual function to Sales with a clear responsibility for supporting business growth via complementary perspectives and control-centric inputs

Team & Internal Stakeholder Management

• Guide and develop team members to facilitate better risk assessment underwriting skills and internal stakeholder management via technical skill-up (e.g. proficiency on legal & technical documents property business practices & norms etc.) role clarity and help them achieve superior performance standards
• Nominate teams for relevant technical and behavioral trainings/ seminars and work on self-development initiatives
• Proactively build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders for smooth cross-functional coordination and alignment towards achievement of function and business objectives cross-functional coordination and alignment towards achievement of function and business objectives

Team & Internal Stakeholder Management

• Guide and develop team members to facilitate better risk assessment underwriting skills and internal stakeholder management via technical skill-up (e.g. proficiency on legal & technical documents property business practices & norms etc.) role clarity and help them achieve superior performance standards
• Nominate teams for relevant technical and behavioral trainings/ seminars and work on self-development initiatives
• Proactively build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders for smooth cross-functional coordination and alignment towards achievement of function and business objectives cross-functional coordination and alignment towards achievement of function and business objectives

Regional Credit Managers

To execute and drive risk assessment and underwriting operations in assigned region in line with established practices and norms and take proposal approval decisions as per approval matrix; to proactively communicate with and guide team members for efficient risk operations in tandem with business operations and growth plans; to liaise with cross-functional stakeholders and escalate cases appropriately to ensure smooth operations on aspects such as proposal approvals exception approvals PDD collections etc.

Internal

Head Risk

Regional Credit Managers

Sales Operations Technical

Risk Monitoring Team

Fortnightly/ Need Based

Daily / Ongoing

Daily / Need Based

Weekly / Need based

Periodic reporting risk/ credit trends & performance; escalation/ exception approvals

Ongoing coordination on proposal approvals and exception management; guidance review of risk/ credit trends & performance

Liaising with peer stakeholders for periodic updates need based coordination on specific cases and Inputs on Legal-Technical reports/ evaluations

Interacting with the monitoring team to understand the issues and concerns pertaining to the Zone and taking corrective action.