Deputy Head, Underwriting

Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time (Hybrid)

Job Summary

• 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.
• 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.

Key Responsibilities
Underwriting Leadership:

• Review underwriting recommendations before escalation to senior management, the Credit/Investment Committee, or other approval authorities.
• Provide guidance to underwriters and credit/investment analysts on complex, high-value, borderline, or exceptional applications.
• Ensure underwriting processes support both portfolio quality and business turnaround-time expectations.
• Support the Head of Underwriting in supervising daily underwriting activities and ensuring timely, accurate, and policy-compliant credit and investment decisions.

Credit Appraisal and Risk Assessment:

• Review income, bank statements, employment records, business cash flow, credit bureau reports, debt obligations, collateral, guarantors, and supporting documents.
• Assess the creditworthiness of individual, business, and salary-backed loan customers.
• 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:

• Escalate investment proposals that fall outside approved risk appetite or delegated authority to the appropriate committee.
• Recommend appropriate facility structure, tenor, repayment plan, collateral, guarantor support, insurance, or approval conditions.
• 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.
• Investment Underwriting and Appraisal:
• 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).
• Evaluate the structure, tenor, expected return, security/collateral (where applicable), and exit terms of investment transactions before recommendation for approval.
• 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.

Asset Financing Underwriting:

• Recommend facility structure, repayment plan, and risk mitigants appropriate to the asset class being financed.
• 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.

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.
• Support internal audit, compliance reviews, credit file reviews, and management assurance exercises.
• Track and document policy exceptions, approval conditions, and credit/investment decision rationales.
• Recommend improvements to credit/investment policies, underwriting checklists, scorecards, approval templates, and exception management processes.

Portfolio Quality and Risk Monitoring:

• 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.
• 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.
• Recommend changes to underwriting criteria where specific products, sectors, or customer segments show increased risk.

Fraud Detection and Documentation Control:

• Maintain records of fraud attempts, documentation defects, and recurring control weaknesses.
• Ensure verification of employment, income, business address, guarantors, collateral, asset ownership, counterparty identity, and customer identity.
• Identify red flags such as forged documents, manipulated bank statements, fake employment or business records, identity mismatches, duplicate applications, and undisclosed liabilities.
• Confirm that loan agreements, investment agreements, offer letters, repayment mandates, guarantor forms, collateral documents, and insurance documents are complete before disbursement.

Team Management and Capability Building

• Conduct regular file reviews and provide feedback to improve underwriting consistency.
• Supervise, coach, and mentor underwriting officers and credit/investment analysts.
• Set performance expectations around decision quality, productivity, turnaround time, compliance, and file documentation.
• 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:

• Advise business teams on credit and investment requirements, approval conditions, customer/counterparty eligibility, documentation expectations, and risk concerns.
• Partner with Sales, Business Development, Investment/Treasury, Credit Risk, Operations, Legal, Compliance, Collections, Recovery, Technology, and Data teams.
• 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:

• 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.
• 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.

Key Deliverables

• Improved credit and investment decision quality and reduced documentation gaps.
• Product-specific underwriting standards and checklists for loans, investments, and asset finance.
• Portfolio quality reports highlighting delinquency, default, and underwriting risk trends.
• Strong underwriting governance and policy compliance across all three product lines.
• Properly maintained policy exception and fraud registers.
• Timely and accurate review of loan, investment, and asset finance applications.

Qualifications and Requirements
Education:

• A Master's Degree in Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, Economics, or a related field is an added advantage.
• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Banking and Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, Statistics, or a related field.

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.
• Experience underwriting personal loans, business/salary-backed loans, investment placements, or asset-backed lending is highly desirable.
• Experience in a bank, finance company, asset finance company, investment firm, microfinance bank, fintech lender, or other non-bank financial institution is required.
• At least 2–5 years of experience in a supervisory, team lead, or management role.

Technical Knowledge:

• 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).
• Strong ability to analyse bank statements, cash flows, financial statements, affordability, credit bureau reports, collateral, guarantors, and repayment/return capacity.
• Strong knowledge of credit underwriting, credit and investment risk assessment, loan and investment structuring, asset finance, portfolio monitoring, and credit governance.

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.