Risk Officer Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

Risk Officer Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

If you are searching for the job description of a risk officer, this post provides the information you are looking for.

It presents the key duties, tasks, and responsibilities that typically represent the risk officer work description in most establishments.

This post also presents major employers’ requirements for the risk officer role when hiring for it.

Job seekers applying for the risk officer position will find this information helpful in putting up a good application.

Please, continue reading:

What Does a Risk Officer Do?

The risk officer is part of the risk management team responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of risk policies and procedures in an organization.

They also analyze various financial data to estimate the degree of risk and level of associated risk involved in extending credit or establishing a business relationship with firms or individuals.

The risk officer job description entails analyzing the quality and content of a client or prospect’s financial reports and establishing the appropriate document required to accurately evaluate the financial status of the client or customer.

It also involves undertaking complex analytics to support key strategic initiatives for growth, innovation, or risk mitigation.

Risk officers are responsible for the quantitative development and implementation of credit risk strategies across the customer lifecycle for all Retail Credit portfolios, and also integrate customer level risk scores into reactive decision points

They are also responsible for developing and optimizing analytically driven credit risk strategies for secured/unsecured credit card portfolios and Overdraft.

The risk officer work description also involves performing in-depth data analytics to develop credit risk strategies for underwriting and line assignment decisions.

Risk officers are required to stay abreast of various regulatory changes and consult with compliance or relevant unit to evaluate the level of regulatory risk associated with a relationship.

They also research economic trends in a firm’s industry to predict probable success of new client or customer.

To work as a risk officer requires a Bachelor’s degree. Individuals interested in the risk officer career must also have financial background and other role-based skills, including communication, interpersonal, presentation, and advanced computer skills to perform their job successfully.

It is also essential that they have strong analytical skills, team-work abilities, and project management skills.

Risk Officer Job Description Example/Sample/Template

The risk officer performs various functions for his/her organization, including coordinating across all business lines to assist in the identification, monitoring, and reporting of risks taken throughout the institution.

They do not have a uniform job description rather it varies according to the type of risk they have been employed to manage. It could be credit risk, information risk, operational risk, etc.

The major tasks, duties, and responsibility that commonly make up the risk officer job description are listed below:

• Consult with relevant units to determine, quantify, and mitigate risks involved in establishing and maintaining various client and industry relationships
• Responsible for assessing metrics and monitoring procedures the organization has set to police transactional risks
• Responsible for granting authorizations, line increase and decreases, payment floats, and account closures
• Responsible for the maintenance of customer credit history database
• Track the performance of portfolios across customer lifecycle
• Consult with management to provide assistance in corporate planning
• Utilize analytical techniques and statistical analysis to develop and optimize credit risk strategies for portfolios to meet pre-defined goals
• Apply segmentation techniques using generic and custom risk scorecards and attributes to build credit risk strategies for underwriting, line assignment, and account management
• Ensure strategies are within the company’s Risk Appetite and satisfy pre-defined profitability hurdles
• Responsible for integrating new data sources and solutions into credit risk strategies
• Perform tracking and reporting on strategy implementations and validating post implementation
• Proactively seek and recommend enhancements to processes and development
• Responsible for developing programs for tracking expected versus actual behavioral and performance measures for appropriate portfolios, populations, and segmentation end-nodes
• Responsible for developing new quantitatively driven strategies and pilot programs across the customer lifecycle
• Perform ad-hoc data analytics as required.

Risk Officer Requirements – Skills, Knowledge, and Responsibilities for Career Success

When recruiting for the risk officer position, employers generally expect interested applicants to meet certain quality, qualification, experience, etc. requirements.

This is to prove that they will be able to effectively handle the obligations, purpose, and objectives of the risk officer role with the recruiting organization.

Shown below are major requirements that applicants for the risk officer position will likely be asked to meet to access the job with most organizations:

• Education: Applicants are required to possess a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Analytics, or in a related quantitative discipline
• Knowledge: It is essential that they have a working knowledge of credit risk modeling/analytics, credit risk portfolio management, or credit risk strategy development. They may also be required to have hands-on experience in developing segmentation models using statistical methods
• Communication skills: They are required to have excellent communication skills to write detailed but concise analysis on a variety of banking areas and prepare Board-level presentations. It is also important to be able to convey information to others in a clear and understandable manner
• Interpersonal skills: They are required to have this skill to develop and build effective relationships. This skill is necessary to effectively secure information with third parties
• Organization skills: They are required to have this skill to effectively prioritize workload and handle multiple projects. It is also useful in conducting meeting with all levels of company employees, including senior management
• Team-work skills: Applicants for the risk officer role must be able to work effectively as a part of a cross functional team
• Presentation skills: The risk officer job requires them to make presentation of findings and recommendations to senior management and executive directors, hence it is important they possess strong presentation skill to perform their job successfully
• Analytical and problem solving skills: It is vital that they have the competence to analyze a variety of situations and develop recommendations on the best course of action
• Computer skill: They must also possess proficient skills in Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Recruiters may show preference for skills in managing in database and ability to create formulas and pivot tables in Excel. Also, a working experience with SAS and E-Miner, and the ability to perform database manipulations using SQL is a plus
• Project management skills: It is important for risk analysts to have the capacity to lead and get job done alone and with others, and manage the accomplishment of assigned tasks/projects within the predetermined time-frame
• Sound judgment: They must be able to take initiative and apply reasoning and logic to various situations and make viable decisions.

Conclusion

If you are an HR manager or recruiter about to hire for the risk officer position in your organization, you will need to make available to interested applicants for the role a detailed description of the job.

This is to enable them learn about the duties and responsibilities they will be expected to perform if hired so that they can decide if it is what they can do.

To make the perfect risk officer description for your organization, you can make use of the sample job description as well as the detailed information about what risk officers do contained in this post.

This article will also help you better understand what risk officers do if you are interested in getting into the career.

With profound knowledge of the role, you will be able to make better decisions about starting a risk officer career.

Did this article increase your knowledge of the risk officer’s duties and responsibilities? Please, leave a comment in the box below. You may also share your job description if you work as a risk officer.