# Senior Manager SME Credit Underwriting & Decisioning > GoTyme ZA (South Africa) · Cape Town, South Africa (Hybrid) · Full-time · Posted 2026-03-31 **Workplace:** hybrid **Department:** South Africa - Banking Services ## Description **Overall Purpose of the Role** This role is accountable for owning, designing, and scaling the Bank’s Business-to-Business lending judgmental underwriting capability and credit risk decisioning model. The incumbent should be strategically minded and be able to help set the strategic direction of how credit decisions will be executed in the bank. This role is likely to initially be almost exclusively focused on the South African market, but with a likely expansion in scope possible to also help establish a similar capability in the other GoTyme jurisdictions, providing input into large client deal flow as may be required. The role leads the development of judgmental credit-based credit assessment frameworks for MSME and SME lending, shifting emphasis from pure cash-flow–based lending toward a holistic evaluation of financial position, capital structure, sustainability, management quality, structural risk mitigants and integrating alternative data sources into lending decisions. Leveraging deep expertise in judgmental credit assessment, the incumbent will design structured, repeatable, and defensible decision frameworks that combine expert credit judgement with data, automation, and technology-enabled workflows. A core mandate of the role is to embed advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques into the credit decisioning process and to leverage alternative data to improve the decisions. This includes translating judgemental credit logic into scalable digital scorecards and decision engines, enhancing predictive accuracy, accelerating turnaround times, and materially improving customer experience. The role will work closely with data science, credit analytics, and engineering teams to harness internal and alternative data sources, continuously optimise decision quality, and reduce friction in the lending journey. The outcome is a robust, digital-first, embedded credit capability that improves speed, consistency, and effectiveness of lending decisions, balances responsible access to credit with disciplined risk management, and delivers strong, sustainable risk-adjusted returns for the Bank. ## Requirements **Experience & Skills Required Essential** - Undergraduate degree in Finance, Credit, Accounting, Economics, Risk Management or related discipline - 8+ years’ experience in business banking, SME/MSME credit risk, or commercial lending Strong hands-on experience in judgmental credit assessment within SME or business lending - Demonstrated ability to assess financial statements, cash flow sustainability, business models, industry risk and management quality - Strong understanding of end-to-end B2B credit lifecycle risk - Proven ability to translate judgmental assessments into structured and scalable decision frameworks - Strategically minded helping set the strategic direction of how credit decisions will be executed in the bank. - Strong stakeholder engagement and constructive challenge capability **Demonstrated exposure to one or more of:** - Balance sheet lending, working capital financing, or lending using alternative data sources - Strong understanding of credit lifecycle risks (origination, underwriting, servicing, collections, impairment) - Strong understanding experience of operational risk management and the ability to identify and mitigate risks appropriately - Proactive partner to help unlock profitable lending segments and partnering with business to access these markets and prevent adverse / negative selection - Proven ability to challenge business decisions constructively and influence outcomes - Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills **Advantageous:** - Experience in digital banking, fintech, or embedded finance models - Exposure to credit decisioning systems or loan origination platforms - Experience blending judgmental and statically based credit decisioning approaches - Familiarity with Agile delivery environments - Exposure to AI-driven or rules-based credit decisioning systems - Experience scaling lending products across multiple geographies - Business minded and having the ability to balance risk and reward **Personal Attributes:** - Lives the values of the Bank and operates with integrity - Ability to recover from adversity and failures - failing, but failing forward - Comfortable in a fast-growing, evolving environment - Pragmatic, curious, and solutions-oriented - Strong ownership and accountability mindset and ability to drive outcomes - Clear communicator across technical and non-technical audiences **Responsibilities:** - Judgmental Credit Assessment & Deal Support - Actively partner with sales and business stakeholders on live B2B lending transactions, providing senior, hands-on credit input during origination. Perform in-depth balance-sheet–focused credit assessments on complex, bespoke, or higher-risk SME transactions, incorporating analysis of financial position, capital structure, liquidity, sustainability, management quality, including alternative data sources. - Approve high-value or non-standard transactions within delegated authority across the bank. - Own and drive the B2B lending credit assessment and decisioning approach across the portfolio. - Guide originators on deal structuring, structural risk mitigants, covenants, and approval conditions to improve deal quality and alignment to risk appetite. - Act as a senior credit partner to business owners and originators, balancing commercial opportunity with disciplined risk judgement. - Provide clear, practical feedback to uplift first-line credit capability and improve submission quality and approval outcomes. **Front-Line Credit Enablement:** - Serve as a trusted credit advisor to the business, balancing risk discipline with commercial pragmatism - Support originators in understanding and applying judgmental credit frameworks consistently - Assist and review against policy and shaping transactions before formal submission to improve approval outcomes - Support timely turnaround of credit decisions in line with agreed service levels, improving both speed of decisioning and customer experience. Framework Application & Continuous Improvement - Ensure judgement remains structured, documented and defensible despite hands-on involvement - Design, implement, and continuously evolve balance-sheet–focused scorecards, structured assessment frameworks, and decision models for B2B lending. - Translate expert judgement into structured, repeatable, and defensible credit decision frameworks that can be embedded into digital systems. - Apply frameworks directly to live lending decisions to ensure real-world relevance and practicality. - Identify recurring weaknesses or systemic gaps in deal submissions and feed insights back into framework, policy, and scorecard enhancements. - Continuously refine assessment criteria and risk appetite calibration based on portfolio behaviour, loss performance, and back-testing results. - Optimise risk-return trade-offs to support sustainable and scalable portfolio. **Governance & Independence Safeguards** - Ensure all credit decisions are robust, well-documented, defensible, and aligned to approved risk appetite. - Maintain appropriate separation between advisory support and final decision authority where required, safeguarding credit independence. - Ensure compliance with regulatory, audit, and internal governance standards across all decisioning activities. - Escalate material concerns where commercial pressures may conflict with risk discipline. Support post-approval reviews, back-testing of decisions, and portfolio deep dives to validate model effectiveness and judgement quality. **Scaling judgmental credit based decisioning capability** - Partner closely with data science, risk modelling, and engineering teams to automate and scale credit decisioning across digital and embedded lending channels. - Develop and enhance automation capabilities that translate judgmental credit expertise into scalable digital scorecards, rules engines, and machine learning models. - Harness advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning techniques to improve predictive accuracy, accelerate decision turnaround times, and materially enhance customer experience. - Leverage internal loss data and alternative data sources to continuously enhance decision effectiveness and reduce adverse selection. - Support the scalable rollout of the B2B lending decisioning model into new markets and territories as the business expands. ## Apply [Apply at GoTyme ZA (South Africa)](https://apply.workable.com/gotyme-za-south-africa/j/E21A6908C9/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)