Credit Team Leader – Digital Lending

About the Role

We are building a new-age, tech-led digital lending business focused on small-ticket, short-tenure unsecured loans for Indian customers.

We are a team of seasoned operators from premier institutions like IIT, NSIT, IIM, with experience working in companies like ICICI Bank, Flipkart, Airtel, Anand Rathi, Snapdeal, RBS etc. We are looking for a highly driven and detail-oriented Credit Team Leader who will be responsible for managing the underwriting process, maintaining portfolio quality, and leading a team of Credit Executives.

This is a hands-on role that requires strong underwriting expertise along with team management capabilities. The role involves reviewing complex cases, ensuring adherence to credit policies, identifying fraud trends, maintaining productivity standards, and driving high-quality credit decisions while balancing growth and risk.

The ideal candidate should come from a digital lending, instant personal loan, salary advance, short-term unsecured lending, or fintech-NBFC background and should possess strong analytical skills, risk assessment capabilities, and leadership qualities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of 4–5 Credit Executives and ensure adherence to productivity and quality standards.
• Review, underwrite, and approve loan applications in accordance with company credit policies and risk parameters.
• Handle exception cases, escalations, and complex customer profiles requiring additional assessment.
• Monitor approval quality, delinquency trends, and portfolio performance to ensure healthy asset quality.
• Conduct detailed analysis of bureau reports, bank statements, salary credits, and customer profiles to assess repayment capability and creditworthiness.
• Identify fraud indicators, suspicious transactions, forged documents, and abnormal customer behavior patterns.
• Ensure proper verification of KYC documents, employment details, income proofs, and customer information.
• Re-underwrite and review applications wherever additional information or clarification is required.
• Monitor team productivity, turnaround time (TAT), approval ratios, and daily throughput.
• Conduct regular quality checks and provide feedback and training to Credit Executives.
• Develop and implement underwriting SOPs, review mechanisms, and escalation matrices.
• Track fraud trends, policy deviations, and operational gaps and recommend corrective actions.
• Coordinate with operations, technology, collections, customer support, and risk teams to ensure smooth functioning of credit operations.
• Maintain accurate documentation and audit trails for all credit decisions.
• Prepare daily, weekly, and monthly MIS reports related to approvals, declines, TAT, fraud cases, and portfolio quality.
• Ensure adherence to internal credit policies, regulatory requirements, and compliance guidelines.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance underwriting quality, customer experience, and operational efficiency.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate should have:

• 4–8 years of total work experience.
• Minimum 2–4 years of experience in digital lending, salary advance, instant personal loans, short-term unsecured lending, or fintech-NBFC credit operations.
• Prior experience managing underwriting teams and handling day-to-day credit operations.
• Strong hands-on understanding of customer verification, document scrutiny, bureau analysis, bank statement analysis, income assessment, and loan underwriting.
• Deep understanding of loan products and customer risk assessment.
• Strong knowledge of bureau variables such as DPDs, enquiries, active tradelines, written-off accounts, settlement flags, and repayment behavior.
• Ability to identify fraud patterns, forged documents, mule accounts, profile inconsistencies, and suspicious customer behavior.
• Experience in handling exceptions, escalations, and policy deviations.
• Familiarity with LOS, LMS, bureau systems, and underwriting workflows.
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills.
• Good communication and people management capabilities.
• Working knowledge of Excel, MIS reporting, and dashboarding.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced startup environment with high ownership and accountability.

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for a hands-on credit professional who can lead from the front and maintain strong underwriting discipline while managing a team of Credit Executives.

The right candidate should be comfortable reviewing complex cases, identifying fraud risks, monitoring team productivity, maintaining portfolio quality, and ensuring timely and high-quality credit decisions. The candidate should possess strong leadership capabilities and be able to balance growth, customer experience, compliance, and risk management in a fast-paced digital lending environment.

Compensation

Compensation will be as per industry standards and will be based on the candidate's relevant experience, domain knowledge, skill set, and performance during the interview process.

The overall compensation structure will be designed to attract and reward high-quality talent with strong underwriting and risk assessment capabilities.