- Job Purpose
The purpose of this job is to execute risk and credit operations on assigned transactions in alignment with established frameworks and processes, ensuring effective and efficient loan underwriting across ABHFL service offerings for sound portfolio quality management. This role is expected to take approval decisions as per approval matrix after due creditworthiness and risk assessment ensuring process adherence, and coordinate with Sales, Operations and ABFL Risk team colleagues to ensure robust risk management operations
- Job Context & Major Challenges (What are the specific aspects of the job that provide a challenge to the jobholder in the context of the Unit/Zone?
Organizational Context
Key Aspects:
- Part of the Aditya Birla Financial Service Group (ABFSG), 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 operates in the Rs. 11.4 trillion Indian Housing Finance market, which has grown at a steady rate of 17% CAGR over the last 3 years 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 newer entrants in niche segments like affordable housing 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 has remained stable at ~37% as on December 2015.
- The nature of the HFC business (dealing largely with retail customers in the potentially sensitive area of housing/ mortgages), along with the additional regulatory and control mechanisms imposed as a result, means it is imperative that all functions and processes align and comply with sound risk management guidelines and applicable regulations/ controls proactively and judiciously. This is vital for managing risk and protecting interests of both the business as well as the customer.
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 Area Credit Manager plays the role of executing risk and credit operations in line with established guidelines & norms and securing the organization against diverse risks in local business operations via process measures and checks. This role is responsible for ensuring robust and efficient creditworthiness and risk assessment, and is the first approval authority in the risk management structure. He/she is the “ears on the ground” member of the Risk Team who meets every customer as part of the underwriting process and also visits the property which is being funded. Therefore, they need to have an understanding of the Legal and Valuation framework to be able to perform their role satisfactorily
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 implementing 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 Risk function team members to remain up to date on business practices/ norms in their respective states/ locations 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 business and commercial acumen, analytical skills, interpersonal and presentation skills, and execution capabilities.
- Education & experience required to fulfil this profile are a CA/ MBA – Finance with minimum 4 – 7 yrs of experience in a bank/ NBFC/ HFC, of which at least recent 2 - 3 yrs experience should be in managing risk and underwriting in an HFC.
- Principal Accountabilities
Accountability
Supporting Actions
Underwriting and Portfolio Quality Management
- Execute risk and credit operations for assigned transactions in adherence with defined frameworks and principles across ABHFL business lines
- Evaluate and approve proposals as per defined approval matrix, seeking guidance from seniors and assisting peers on specific cases as required
- Liaise with relevant ABFL Risk team members for Legal-Technical evaluations and clarifications in complex cases, as required
Process Efficiency
- Execute risk operations efficiently and in a manner that enables business performance while ensuring risk management imperatives
- Coordinate seamlessly with Credit Processing Analysts and Credit Analysts to ensure files are logged appropriately and analyzed thoroughly
- Work as per process-driven coordination mechanisms with Sales and Operations teams for effective decision making and problem solving in line with business and risk management needs; escalate to RCM as required
Risk Compliance & Control
- Ensure compliance with established risk management principles and norms; compile periodic and need based MIS, reports, escalation case documents, etc.
- Conduct local risk operations in line with defined ‘Maker – Checker’ mechanism with Sales and Operations teams in a systematic manner, across key aspects such as exception approvals, collateral valuation, PDD completion, cheque bounce collections, etc.
Collection Efficiency
- Work in alignment with process-driven mechanisms for coordination with the Collections/ Operations team on tracking delinquency cases and driving collections efficiently and effectively
- Escalate specific/ complex cases, as required, to RCM for recovery and delinquency/ NPA avoidance
Business Growth and Sustainability
- Work in partnership with Sales and Operations colleagues on case based decision making for effective support on business growth and sustainability
Self-Development & Internal Stakeholder Coordination
- Seek development to execute better risk assessment and loan underwriting via technical skill-up (e.g. proficiency on legal & technical documents, property business practices & norms, etc.) and role clarity
- Maintain relationships with internal stakeholders for smooth coordination on complex/ escalation/ exception cases