Senior Manager - Business Banking Unit at I&M Bank

Job Purpose:

• The Job Holder will be tasked with the key responsibility of identifying, measuring, and providing adequate mitigation measures on credit risk requirements under the Business Banking segment within the bank and ensuring service levels (SLAs) & Turnaround Times (TAT)’s are adhered, and the highest credit management standards are maintained to minimize Bank Risk and comply with Bank Policies and Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) regulations.
• The Job Holder will also be responsible for portfolio management by ensuring quality, monitoring, control, and early warning signs identification and remedying the accounts through Restructure and reorganization and or managed exit strategies.
• The job entails preparation of credit packs that include advisory recommendations for consideration by senior management either at Credit Risk Management Committee (CRMC) or Board Credit Committee (BCC) level.

Responsibilities/Duties/Tasks

Credit analysis

• Strategy implementation by ensuring credit applications meet the minimum bank return while conforming to the set Service Level Agreements (SLAs), meeting set turnaround time agreements (TAT), in line with set CBK prudential guidelines credit policy & product program requirements.
• Risk identification, measurement, mitigation through use of risk rating models in place and providing advisory recommendations to the relevant credit authority for sanction/decisioning.
• Preparation and review of Credit Applications in compliance with CBK prudential guidelines and approved bank credit policy and product programs for presentation to CRMC and BCC in line with the Delegated Authority. These includes adherence to the Single Obligor Limit, Political Exposed Persons (PEPs), Industry Sector limits & Product concentration and maturity limits in place.
• Analysis and recommendation of staff loan credit applications in line with the approved staff loan credit requirements.
• Undertaking fundamental credit analysis of bank counterparties (financial institutions) & insurance companies using both quantitative and qualitative factors in compliance with the country risk policy by minimizing country risk impact to the Bank and providing recommendations to Credit Risk Management Committee for sanction/decision.
• Undertaking periodic review of Non-Performing Accounts seeking to identify gaps that led to the non-performing status in turn informing Credit Risk Management Committee for adoption of further mitigation measures
• Approving credit applications with limits falling within delegated authority.

Portfolio & Risk Management

• Monitoring of the portfolio for quality, control, and identification of early warning signs within the portfolio. For example, monthly review of assigned portfolio with a view to ensure that portfolio at risk is within set thresholds and where accounts are deteriorating, engaging relationship team further to remedy the position to deter full deterioration.
• Covenant tracking and highlighting customer breaches where noted. Ensuring other accompanying securities such as outstanding insurance covers and valuation reports are in place.
• Ascertaining that resultant security cover is adequate pertaining to security release requests within the portfolio.
• Review of expired Temporary Overdrafts and Limits and reviewing approvals for Excesses over the Limits/without limits to ensure adherence to Delegated Authority Matrix.
• Conducting of site/client visits for new borrowers, slow moving accounts, borrowings with Debenture backed security for monitoring of stocks and snap check on overall state of operations.
• Regular review of assigned portfolio and ensuring compliance to Development Finance Institution (DFIs) compliance requirements.
• Review of Risk Control Self Assessments (RCSA) and audit requirements to ensure compliance.

Review and sign off Credit Facility Contracts and Other Bank documents

• Bank’s Authorised Signatory/Power of Attorney (POA) for various documents prepared for execution as per Delegated Authority.
• Ensuring Credit Facility Contracts & covenant trackers conform to set approved terms and conditions as captured in the Loan Origination System (LOS).

Stakeholder Engagement

• Timely coordination & collaboration engagements with branch relationship teams, credit documentation, legal and credit administration teams on matters related to lending for the Business Banking segment.
• Advising on credit decision(s) to various stakeholders within the prescribed time.
• Guiding Business Segments’ Credit Analysts to ensure quality proposals are originated which in turn ensures decision making is done within SLAs in place.
• Engagements with stakeholders to ensuring that Service Level Agreements and Turn Around Times are adhered to

Product Development, Market/Industry Governance

• Regular market research on the new products in the market, best practices of the Banking industry from the competition and any other development/occurrence in the market with high potential impact on lending. This informs input on sustainable lending practices & industries to grow business and those to avoid lending.
• Review of segment product papers and advising to the relevant credit authority on the risks pertaining to the same for sanction/decision.
• Providing credit system requirements improvements and participating in undertaking User Acceptance Tests (UAT) and projects for adoption/rollout.

Conducting Trainings for Bank Staff and Identification of best practices pertaining to credit process

• Conducting Bank wide training on Credit matters pertaining to Bank’s products, deal structuring, use of credit applications, credit analysis leading to upscaling of staff and enhanced service delivery and quality credit applications within the Business Banking Segment.

Decision making and accountabilities

Providing advisory/recommendations pertaining to credit requests results in growth of the bank’s revenue as follows:

•  Growth in both net interest income & non-funded income through customer drawdowns and repayments made.
• It also informs annual budgets preparation by putting in place year on year growth estimates against which adequate loan book provision allocations are put in place.
• Review of proposed pricing against Return on Equity (ROE) as per the customer profitability tool.
• Portfolio monitoring informs decision making on provisioning of the loan book and informs budgetary allocation of the same for monitoring purposes.
• Review of portfolio also informs review of pricing where customers have breached set covenants.
• Portfolio review also ensures correct asset classification.
• Execution of facility financial contracts on behalf of the bank ensures customer compliance to approved terms and facilitates covenant tracking to set terms upon acceptance of the approved terms.
• Advises on facility structure, collateral structure and mitigating factors to mitigating credit risk.
• Quality credit proposal analysis ensures, faster decisioning on requests presented which in turn ensures customer feedback is provided in the shortest time possible. By adhering to service level agreements, we ensure that customer requests are processed in good time end to end and this translates to efficient service delivery.
• Approval of credit proposals results in preparation of facility contract letters upon whose acceptance by customers results in revenue and conformance to covenants.
• Product development, market/industry research informs part of the risk appetite framework which in turn informs relationship teams where to target business and where to avoid.
• Stakeholder engagement and training facilitates alignment of credit review process across the bank resulting in meeting service level agreements in place.

Skills, competencies & experience

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree plus Professional qualification
• 7 to 9 years supervisory & managerial experience

Skills and Competencies

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong people-management and leadership skills.
• Advanced financial risk analysis skills.
•  Advanced credit analysis skills.
• Excellent problem solving and decision-making skills.
• Advanced credit, banking and good knowledge of prudential guidelines.
• Ability to comprehend and handle both straight forward and complex financial /lending proposals.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge of Banking products.
• Have a good network in the banking industry.