Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner
FairMoney · Johannesburg
FairMoney is a pioneering mobile banking institution specializing in extending credit to emerging markets. Established in 2017, the company currently operates primarily within Nigeria, and it has secured nearly €50 million in funding from renowned global investors, including Tiger Global, DST, and Flourish Ventures.
In alignment with its vision, FairMoney is actively constructing the foremost mobile banking platform and point-of-sale (POS) solution tailored for emerging markets. The journey began with the introduction of a digital microcredit application exclusively available on Android and iOS devices. Today, FairMoney has significantly expanded its range of services, encompassing a comprehensive suite of financial products, such as current accounts, savings accounts, debit cards, and state-of-the-art POS solutions designed to meet the needs of both merchants and agents. FairMoney thrives on its diverse workforce, bringing together talent from over 27 nationalities. This multicultural team drives the company’s mission of reshaping financial services for underserved communities.To gain deeper insights into FairMoney’s pivotal role in reshaping Africa’s financial landscape, we invite you to watch informative video.
The role
We are hiring a Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner to run FairMoney’s Android Quick Loans portfolio in Nigeria. Android is a mature, high-volume and strategically important lending portfolio. This is a mini-CEO role for the portfolio: you will be the delegated day-to-day owner of its commercial, economic, risk and people outcomes.
Please note this role is remote for talents in South Africa and other countries but hybrid for talents in Nigeria and India.
Job Description
Portfolio economics and business planning
- Own Android revenue, sustainable Gross Loan Book growth, risk-adjusted Gross Profit, economic profit and credit-risk performance
- Build and own the annual Android business plan and strategic roadmap
- Produce the monthly portfolio forecast and maintain a clear bridge between actual performance, budget and prior forecast
- Diagnose material variances and drive corrective actions with clear owners and deadlines
- Manage Expected Credit Loss, ECL/Revenue, approval and disbursal rates, Average Loan Size, tenure, exposure, FPD, roll rates, PAR, NPL, repeat value and CAC payback
- Partner with Finance and Portfolio Economics on loan-level and customer-level NPV, funding efficiency and performance attribution
End-to-end Android credit strategy
Own and continuously improve strategy across:
- New-to-Bank: low-and-grow origination, first-loan ticket, tenure, pricing and risk controls
- Returning: repeat eligibility, behavioural strategy, offer construction and exposure growth
- Top-Ups and Internal Consolidation: eligibility, incremental exposure, pricing, conversion and post-event risk
- High-risk segments: risk-box clean-up, pricing, short-tenure treatment and exposure caps
- Rejected-customer re-entry: controlled requalification using risk, affordability and alternative data
You will own the commercial application of PD cut-offs and calibration, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure limits, affordability, income-source treatment, fraud overlays, MBS treatments and customer-routing logic.
Affordability, experimentation and production delivery
- Help formalise and operationalise Android affordability using bank-statement/MBS signals, transaction behaviour, SMS-derived estimates, declared income and repayment history
- Translate affordability into amount, tenure, price, exposure, Top-Up and Consolidation decisions
- Design controlled A/B, multivariate and champion/challenger tests with explicit hypotheses, maturity windows, success measures and rollback triggers
- Measure full unit economics rather than only early risk metrics
- Translate strategy into decision-engine rules, parameters and implementation requirements
- Own replay, back-testing, validation, staged rollout, monitoring and post-implementation review
- Drive cross-functional dependencies through to production rather than stopping at analysis
Delegated decision rights
Within agreed appetite, budgets and authority, you will be empowered to:
- Prioritise and sequence the Android portfolio roadmap
- Approve and launch controlled experiments within agreed thresholds
- Scale, pause, modify or roll back strategies against predefined evidence and guardrails
- Reallocate team capacity across Android workstreams
- Escalate and resolve delivery blockers
You will escalate decisions that exceed delegated financial or risk thresholds, change company-level risk appetite, create material legal or customer-conduct implications, or materially affect another portfolio.
Team and cross-functional leadership
- Build and lead a senior Android credit-strategy team with clear workstream ownership
- Establish strong weekly and monthly portfolio rhythms
- Develop credible workstream owners and at least one portfolio deputy
- Reduce key-person dependency through documentation, controls and repeatable processes
- Work closely with Decision Science, Product, Engineering, Growth, Finance, Portfolio Economics, Collections, Fraud, Compliance, Legal, Operations and Customer Service
- Mobilise these partners around clear briefs, owners, timelines and expected economic impact
Requirements
- 6+ years in consumer credit risk, credit strategy or lending portfolio management
- Proven ownership of a material lending portfolio or product line, including revenue, GLB, risk and profitability
- Experience building annual business plans, monthly forecasts and corrective action plans
- Strong digital unsecured-lending experience; Nigerian or broader African-market experience is strongly preferred
- Advanced understanding of PD, LGD, EAD, vintages, roll rates, IFRS 9/ECL, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure, affordability and NPV
- Strong SQL capability and comfort with Python or equivalent analytical tooling
- Experience translating credit strategy into decision-engine rules and controlled production changes
- Evidence of building senior teams, developing successors and leading complex cross-functional delivery
- Strong executive communication and the confidence to challenge decisions with evidence
Benefits
- 25 days paid vacation, Sick & Public Holidays to B2B contractors.
- Remote (timezone must have significant overlap with CET).
- Training & Development budget.
- Paid company business trips
Recruitment Process
- A screening interview with one of the members of the Talent Acquisition team.
- Business Case Study
- Technical interview with Global Head of Android Lending
- Final Interview with Chief Credit Officer