Data Science Analyst (Credit Risk) at Discovery Limited

Job Purpose

The Credit Acquisitions Management team is responsible for the development and implementation of credit granting strategies, tracking and optimizing these strategies and to make sure that they are relevant and effective. This requires expert analytics and the creation of optimal data assets to support monitoring, measurement and predictive model development to optimize key outcomes from a credit and client onboarding perspective.

Areas of responsibility may include but are not limited to

MI and reporting

• Creating base data assets to enable monitoring, measurement and predictive model development to optimize key outcomes from a credit and client onboarding perspective
• Prepare monthly performance review deck for senior management
• Automation of daily/monthly monitoring reports pertaining to all elements of the credit origination journey via dashboards or other user friendly methods
• Provide in-depth analysis focused on unpacking any concerning trends observed and recommendations on the possible solutions
• Ad hoc analysis to support executive decision making

Optimizing credit granting strategies

• Simulating the impact of any changes/enhancements to existing strategies/decision rules
• Automation of monthly strategy monitoring reports
• Validation of existing and newly rolled out strategies to make sure that the system is executing the strategies as intended
• Propose new strategies based on review of existing strategies through in-depth analytics to identify opportunities
• Building of propensity models that will predict future outcomes

Operations optimisation

• Assist the Credit Operations team to develop MI that enables effective management of the area by using scientific measures that drive optimal credit assessment outcomes

System Implementation

• Work closely with the systems teams (architects & developers) to take a new idea/improvement all the way through the development life-cycle up to implementation and then to monitor and optimize the outcomes as new information becomes available
• Assist in the design and scoping of new functionality
• Support the testing of any new functionality
• Create exception reports to ensure the implementation of changes are working as expected
• Documentation of high-level business requirements

Stakeholder engagements

• Present high quality analytics at various committees within the Bank
• Work closely with other analytical areas within the Bank (Sales, Customer Value Management, RnD) to assist on relevant projects and ensure alignment within the analytical community
• Engage the support teams on issues relating to system incidents, implementation of new strategies/changes and help identifying the root cause of issues by interrogating the available data

Personal Attributes and Skills

• A keen interest in all things data – exploration, analytics and creating information from the noise
• Resourceful and tenacious
• Self-motivated
• Focused on driving results
• Detail-oriented
• Organised and process oriented; ability to manage time effectively
• Ability to convey complex data in a concise understandable manner and distil the key messages
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to work effectively across varying levels of management and multi-disciplinary teams
• Strong verbal and written reporting skills.
• Quantitative / qualitative analytical skills

Education and Experience

• MSc/ BSc (Hons) in Statistics / Data science / Actuarial Science / Financial Maths / Applied Maths / Engineering
• Minimum 2 years’ analytical experience in an analytical and data driven environment, preferably within a Credit Risk Space
• Programming capabilities in SAS / R / Python / VBA / PowerBI
• Creating dashboards & data visualizations
• Experience in data manipulation and application of statistical tools like SAS and SQL
• Skilled in Microsoft products, particularly PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Access
• Retail banking experience is preferred