• Application Deadline:
• Position: Head of Credit



• Job Type Full Time



• Qualification BA/BSc/HND



• Experience 8 years



• Location Lagos




• Job Field Finance / Accounting / Audit 
  
  

Purpose Statement

• The Head of Credit will have overall responsibility for CredPal’s credit strategy, underwriting framework, portfolio quality, risk appetite, and lending performance across consumer and business lending.


• This role will balance growth, risk, customer experience, and profitability, ensuring that the company scales its lending portfolio responsibly while maintaining strong credit quality and disciplined risk management.


• The successful candidate will be a commercially minded credit leader who can combine strong credit judgment, data, technology, and portfolio insights to drive sustainable lending growth.

Responsibilities

• Credit Strategy: Define and lead CredPal’s overall credit strategy across consumer and business lending products.


• Portfolio Ownership: Own the performance, quality, growth, and profitability of the credit portfolio, ensuring appropriate balance between risk and commercial objectives.


• Credit Policy & Risk Appetite: Develop and continuously refine credit policies, underwriting standards, approval authorities, limits, exceptions, and risk appetite frameworks.


• Underwriting Leadership: Oversee underwriting across consumer and business lending, ensuring consistent, data-driven, and commercially sound credit decisions.


• Business Lending: Establish robust frameworks for assessing business borrowers, including cash flow, financial statements, repayment capacity, sector risk, concentration, and collateral or security where applicable.


• Credit Decision: Drive the development and optimization of scorecards, decision rules, risk segmentation, credit limits, pricing, and automated decision strategies.


• Portfolio Monitoring: Establish strong portfolio monitoring and early-warning frameworks covering delinquency, defaults, PAR, NPLs, roll rates, vintage performance, concentration, and emerging risks.


• Risk-Based Growth: Partner with Product, Business, Sales, and Data teams to identify opportunities for responsible portfolio expansion while maintaining acceptable risk-adjusted returns.


• Credit Pricing: Support risk-based pricing strategies that appropriately reflect borrower risk, funding costs, expected losses, and target profitability.


• Fraud & Credit Risk: Work closely with Fraud, Risk, Data, Product, and Engineering teams to strengthen fraud detection, application controls, customer verification, and credit-loss prevention.


• Collections & Recovery Strategy: Partner with Collections and Recovery teams to improve delinquency management, repayment outcomes, restructuring strategies, and recoveries.


• Portfolio Analytics: Ensure strong portfolio reporting and analysis, translating credit data into clear actions and recommendations for Management.


• Stress Testing: Lead stress testing and scenario analysis to assess the impact of economic, market, sector, and portfolio changes on credit performance.


• Credit Governance: Chair or actively support relevant credit committees and ensure appropriate governance around major credit decisions, exceptions, and portfolio exposures.


• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure lending activities comply with applicable regulations, consumer protection requirements, internal policies, and credit governance standards.


• Technology & Automation: Drive the use of data, automation, alternative credit data, scoring models, and decision technology to improve credit quality and turnaround time.


• Team Leadership: Build, lead, and develop a high-performing credit team across underwriting, portfolio management, and credit analytics.


• Executive Reporting: Provide Management and relevant committees with clear reporting on portfolio health, credit losses, emerging risks, growth opportunities, and recommended actions.


• KPIs / Success Metrics


• Portfolio growth and risk-adjusted profitability.


• PAR, NPL, default, and credit-loss performance.


• Approval rate versus portfolio quality.


• Consumer and business loan portfolio performance.


• Vintage and roll-rate performance.


• Reduction in avoidable credit losses and bad debt.


• Turnaround time for credit decisions.


• Accuracy and effectiveness of underwriting and decision models.


• Performance of risk-based pricing and credit limits.


• Recovery and collections outcomes on delinquent portfolios.


• Compliance with credit policies, limits, and approval authorities.


• Quality and effectiveness of the Credit team

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Accounting, Business, Statistics, or a related discipline; a postgraduate degree is an advantage.


• Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience in credit, lending, risk, portfolio management, or underwriting, with significant leadership experience.


• Strong experience within banking, fintech, consumer lending, business lending, or financial services.


• Demonstrable experience managing sizable credit portfolios and delivering sustainable portfolio growth.


• Deep understanding of consumer and business credit underwriting, portfolio management, credit risk, and lending economics.


• Strong knowledge of credit policies, risk appetite frameworks, approval authorities, risk segmentation, and portfolio controls.


• Strong experience with business lending, including financial statement analysis, cash-flow assessment, sector analysis, repayment capacity, and exposure management.


• Strong understanding of portfolio metrics including PAR, NPLs, roll rates, vintage analysis, expected credit losses, defaults, and recoveries.


• Experience with credit scoring, automated decisioning, risk models, and data-driven lending strategies.


• Strong understanding of fraud risk, concentration risk, stress testing, and early-warning systems.


• Strong commercial and financial acumen with the ability to balance growth, risk, and profitability.


• Strong analytical capability with proficiency in Excel and experience working with BI, SQL, or other analytical tools.


• Strong leadership and people-management skills with experience building and developing high-performing credit teams.


• Excellent stakeholder-management skills with the ability to work across Product, Data, Engineering, Finance, Collections, Recovery, Operations, Compliance, and Executive Management.


• Strong communication and executive presentation skills.


• Relevant professional qualifications such as CFA, FRM, ACA, ACCA, ICAN, or other credit/risk certifications are an advantage.