Collections Associate at Lidya Global

Lidya is the future of finance for small businesses in fast-growing economies. Our goal is to help great business owners access financing and build a credit score through an easy and inspiring lending process. Lidya currently operates in Nigeria where over 100,000 businesses have signed up for its service and is backed by Omidyar Network, Accion, Newid Capital, Bamboo Capital and Alitheia Capital. The Company has raised close to $10m USD in venture capital and has teams across Lagos (Nigeria), Porto (Portugal) and New York (USA).

Lidya is founded by Tunde Kehinde, the co-Founder and former Managing Director of Jumia Nigeria, the largest eCommerce platform in Africa and Ercin Eksin, the former Chief Operating Officer of Jumia Africa responsible for operations in 6 of the largest economies in Africa. Jumia is publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Tunde and Ercin also co-founded Africa Courier Express, the largest direct-to-consumer delivery provider in Nigeria. Tunde and Ercin attended Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago- Booth, respectively for their MBAs.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Collections Associate

Location: Lagos

Job Descriptions

• The Collections Associate position is responsible for negotiating payments and settlements on behalf of Lidya to ensure the timely collection of payments from delinquent clients and accurate accounts receivable reporting.
• You will be a manager responsible for providing guidance to the collection analysts and ensuring all collection processes are effectively completed and NPL reduction is achieved.

Company Culture

• Ambitious & Metrics Driven: You want to solve the $5 trillion USD small business credit gap across fast-growing economies. You are committed to relentlessly finding the right customer, building trust and converting those relationships into sustainable, win-win partnerships. You understand that you will be judged on your numbers and building a high growth, profitable loan book.
• Has No Complacency and is High Energy. You understand your role is critical to the company. You apply high energy every day to settle debts and decrease NPLs. You want to grow every day, month, quarter, year. You are persistent, clear and driven to get deals done – properly and quickly.
• Resourceful, High Integrity, High Impact. You find a way. You do business with trust and transparency and dig into the details with the aim to help customers repay on-time and consistently.
• Collaborative. You understand you need a team to succeed. You carry along internal stakeholders to ensure they are aligned to support and drive collections.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Team Management: Manage the collections analyst in the debt collection processes and work with analysts to develop, recommend, and enact payment plans to eliminate client debt in an agreed timeframe aligned with Lidya’s collections policy. Collaborate with key internal stakeholders and external partner to support the needs of the collections processes.
• Debt Settlements: Accurately maintain client records and manage all past due accounts and determine the appropriate collection action to be taken for each individual client. Collect on delinquent accounts by contacting customers via telephone, email, and visiting the place of business. Compile daily, weekly, and monthly reports on status of delinquent accounts, collection activity, and accounts receivable status. Report progress of collections to Supervisor, make recommendations for next steps and write-offs.
• Loan Portfolio Growth. Support the evaluation of loans given to customers by ensuring that credit appraisals are completed properly and uphold monitoring of accounts to identify outstanding debts. Review terms of contract and service with client and clearly communicate various payment options. Work cooperatively with other departments to best determine how to balance both the customer's and Lidya’s needs.

Desired Qualifications and Skillset

• 4 to 7+ years of experience working in financial services industry as a collections, credit disputes, credit reporting, or fraud resolution Associate.
• Bachelor's degree in finance, law, accounting, statistics, investments or a related business discipline.
• Ability to manage a team of 2 to 3 colleagues to meet commercial targets consistently and sustainably
• Working knowledge of the entire underwriting process from loan application to funds disbursement and collections.
• Outstanding customer engagement skills and demonstrated experience with managing day to day aspects of client relationships, including considerable experience with client negotiations.
• Superior organization with a demonstration of ownership and taking initiative to accomplish goals.
• Ability to work in a goal oriented environment where you will be evaluated on your KPIs.
• High attention to detail and strong analytical skills including the ability to properly identify the key credit risks, and reach a prompt and well thought out credit decision.

Our Offer

• Competitive salary, workplace benefits and eligibility for equity in Lidya.
• Become part of a highly professional and dynamic team.
• An unparalleled personal and professional growth as our longer-term objective is to train the next generation of leaders for country-changing ventures.

Application Closing Date
31st January, 2020.