Area Manager - Education Loan

Location Name: Pune - Wakdewadi

Job Purpose

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.

Duties And Responsibilities

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. Translate credit plans into regional or central execution priorities. Review team underwriting quality, productivity, controls and capability. Manage escalations and vendor performance across assigned locations or work queues.

Key Decisions / Dimensions

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.

Major Challenges

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.

Required Qualifications And Experience

Graduate or postgraduate in Finance, Commerce, Economics, Management or a related discipline. 3-5 years of relevant credit or underwriting experience, including exposure to team, location, portfolio or complex case management; Education Loan exposure preferred.

Critical skills and knowledge

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 High standards of integrity, customer confidentiality and control discipline