Deputy Area Manager - Education Loan

Assess Education Loan applications independently and consistently, balancing customer eligibility, repayment capacity, academic and employability factors, collateral support, legal and technical acceptability, and portfolio quality.

• Review applicant and co-applicant identity, relationship, academics, admission, institution, course, country, test scores and requested funding.
• Assess income, banking, bureau, obligations, repayment capacity and policy eligibility.
• Evaluate cost of education, scholarships, margin or own contribution, living expenses and the proposed loan amount.
• Assess secured and unsecured structures, including property, gold or other approved collateral, through applicable reports and controls.
• Own or review Legal and Technical Assessment requirements for secured cases and ensure satisfactory reports are available before progressing the credit decision.
• Engage and coordinate with approved third-party valuers and lawyers to facilitate timely valuation, technical and legal reports; review report validity, observations, conditions and exceptions for credit consideration.
• Review verification outcomes, fraud indicators, deviations and mitigants, and raise evidence-based queries.
• Prepare or validate credit assessment notes, recommendations, sanction conditions and deviation matrices.
• Decide, recommend, refer or decline cases within the approved credit authority matrix and ensure complete decision audit trail.
• Monitor underwriting quality, approval, rejection and deviation trends, turnaround time, productivity and portfolio feedback.
• Coordinate with Sales, Risk, Operations, RCU, Collections, Legal, Technical, collateral teams and external service providers while preserving independent credit judgement.
• Provide market and portfolio feedback for policy refinement, process improvement and new product launches.
• Own the assigned credit work queue and resolve day-to-day case queries.
• Maintain accurate system records and escalate material exceptions beyond delegated authority.

• Approve, recommend, refer or decline cases strictly within the approved credit authority matrix and risk policy.
• Assess the acceptability of legal, technical, valuation and collateral observations for credit decisioning within delegated authority.
• Escalate title, valuation, technical, fraud, policy, compliance and other material exceptions to the prescribed authority.
• Numeric sanction and deviation authorities are to be defined in the approved delegation matrix.
• Key interactions Internal Sales, Product, Risk, Operations, RCU/Fraud Control, Collections, Legal, Technical, Collateral, Compliance, Finance, Technology and COE. External Students, co-applicants, approved valuers, lawyers, legal and technical agencies, verification partners and other approved service providers.

• Balancing growth, customer experience, turnaround time and portfolio quality.
• Managing incomplete or inconsistent academic, financial, collateral, legal and technical information.
• Coordinating internal teams and third-party agencies while maintaining independent credit judgement.
• Identifying and resolving adverse legal, technical, valuation, fraud or policy observations within defined authority.

Graduate or postgraduate in Finance, Commerce, Economics, Management or a related discipline. 1-3 years of relevant experience in credit appraisal, underwriting, secured/unsecured lending or financial services; Education Loan exposure preferred.

• Credit appraisal and financial analysis
• Bureau, banking and income assessment
• Academic and employability assessment
• Secured and unsecured lending
• Legal and Technical report interpretation
• Property valuation, collateral and title-risk awareness
• Third-party valuer, lawyer and vendor coordination
• Fraud-risk awareness and decision writing
• Excel, presentation and business MIS capability