Organization Context

Aditya Birla Capital Limited. ABCL is registered with RBI as a Systematically Important Non-Deposit accepting Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC). ABCL is one of the top private diversified NBFCs in India. As of 31-Mar'25, ABCL has a pan-India presence with 450 branches and a lending book of Rs. 1.2 Lack Crores.

ABCL offers end-to-end lending solutions to a diverse set of customers - Retail, HNI, MSMEs, and Mid & Large Corporates through secured as well as unsecured loan products. The diverse range of lending products includes Retail Small Ticket Secured and Unsecured Loans, Unsecured Personal Loans, Unsecured Business Loans, Health & Education Loans, Digital B2B2C and B2B2B Small Ticket Loans, Small Business Secured Loans, Loans Against Property (LAP), Lease Rental Discounting (LRD), Construction Finance (to Real Estate Developers), SME Loans, Capital Markets Loans (Loan Against Shares), Supply Chain Finance, Mid and Large Corporate Loans, and Infrastructure Finance loans. ABCL also has a Wealth Management division.

ABCL is rated AAA by India Ratings, ICRA and CARE (reaffirmed in 2020). ABCL secured the ABG Business Excellence Award in 2017 (Silver), and 2015 (Bronze), and multiple other Awards on forums like CII.

Business Context

The Credit Function at ABFL plays a pivotal role in enabling responsible retail lending across a vast and diverse geographical footprint. With over 420 branches covering 12,500+ pincodes, the team supports exponential customer growth driven by both direct channels and lending service partnerships. This expansion demands robust credit evaluation and risk management capabilities.To meet the scale and speed of operations, the department has embraced advanced technology, including new APIs, STPs, Go-No-Go frameworks, and BREs under the Lentra Revamp Project, enabling faster turnaround and data-driven decisions. Analytics and data science are deeply embedded in underwriting, leveraging predictive models based on personal, financial, demographic, and bureau data.

The Credit team also supports digital sourcing, especially in Supply Chain Finance, and is aligned with ABFL's strategy to penetrate Tier 3 to Tier 5 cities, ensuring financial inclusion. With new growth areas like Education Loans and Two-Wheeler Financing, the function is central to ABFL's mission of expanding its retail loan bouquet across India's urban and emerging markets.

As part of a top-tier NBFC with AAA credit ratings and 1.30 lakh crore AUM, the Credit Function must navigate regulatory changes, manage credit costs, and maintain portfolio quality while supporting the company's role in India's journey toward a USD 5 trillion economy. The role demands collaboration across Sales, Risk, and Operations to ensure efficient credit delivery and sound portfolio management

Job Context

The Credit function for Secured Loans in an NBFC setup plays a critical role in enabling access to medium and long-term financing for small businesses and individuals through products like Small Ticket Secured Lending (STSL) and Micro LAP (MLAP). These loans are backed by collateral and require thorough credit evaluation to ensure portfolio hygiene and risk control. The function is responsible for assessing creditworthiness using both quantitative and qualitative parameters such as business size, earnings, liquidity, and management quality.

In a rapidly evolving financial landscape, the credit team must institutionalize robust approval processes, engage effectively with sales teams for complete documentation, and ensure seamless adoption of credit frameworks. Technology integration is key to improving turnaround times (TAT), enabling predictive risk assessment, and building a high-quality portfolio. The function also monitors key performance indicators and collaborates with stakeholders to ensure timely regularization of margin shortfalls and safety of financed amounts. Continuous process improvement initiatives are essential to enhance Return on Assets (ROA), manage costs, and maintain compliance with regulatory standards and fraud risk controls.

Key Challenges

Technical - The market is highly competitive with the availability of solutions that provide data at a click of a second. We need to continuously explore bring technology up to the curve as the manual leg in underwriting on the technology front is quite exhaustive.
Talent Retention - Retaining key talent within the team can be difficult, especially if employees are seeking more. Compensation Packages from Rival companies
Portfolio management in dynamic environment - Portfolio management in continuously changing external environment and competition strategy can be very difficult to manage
FTR logins –
To ensure availability of data and information for exhaustive credit appraisals as each of the proposals has their respective structuring complexities as per the customer, product & regulatory requirements
Ensuring faster TATs for approval process
To ensure that credit and customer risk are mitigated while pending documentation is monitored and regularized
Proactive monitoring and identification of risks in a dynamic and fast paced business context and regularization of margin shortfalls.
Key Result Areas: Write the key results expected from the job and the supporting actions for each of these key result areas (For a majority of jobs typically there could be 4- 7 key result areas)- Maximum 10 KRAs can be updated

Key Result Areas

Supporting Actions

Credit Underwriting Management

Ensure timely and policy-compliant credit decisions across assigned branches.
Support branch teams in evaluating proposals and managing turnaround time.
Address audit and compliance observations and coordinate with collections for recovery actions

Process Improvements

Identify and implement local process enhancements to improve efficiency and reduce manual work.
Support adoption of digital tools and workflows at the branch level.

Portfolio Management

Monitor bounce rates and early delinquencies using MIS dashboards.
Implement corrective actions for high-risk accounts and support portfolio quality improvement

Business Growth

Collaborate with sales and channel partners to support disbursement targets.
Ensure smooth credit operations through regular engagement with stakeholders

Team Development

Train and mentor branch credit officers to strengthen underwriting and compliance.
Promote consistent execution of credit policies and support talent development.
Job Purpose of Direct Reports: Describe the job purpose of the direct report/s to the job (in 2-3 lines for each report)

NA

Relationships: Describe the nature and purpose of most important contacts or relationship (except superior/team members) with individuals, departments, organizations inside and outside of the organization, that job is required to interact with in order to deliver the job objectives

Relationship Type Frequency Nature

Internal

Sales team
Area Credit team
Operations team
Other functions
Risk Management Committee

Ongoing

Ongoing

Ongoing

Monthly

Quarterly

Proposal approvals, interest rate approval, providing market intelligence, MIS on deviations in client accounts
Business discussions for smooth operations
Portfolio reviews and credit approval
Portfolio reviews and portfolio development strategies
Aligning self with the strategies to the organization for implementation of the vision.

External

Existing and Potential Customers
Channel Partners/ DSAs

Fortnightly

Need based

Customer relationship management (CRM) & understanding the market pulse
CRM, commission updates & understanding the market pulse of new initiatives etc.

Area Credit Manager - Retail Secured - Hisar