Operations Specialist - Digital Lending

About the role

Old Mutual is hiring an Operations Specialist in Lilongwe to coordinate and supervise the back-office operations of its microfinance unit (OMFIN). The role ensures efficient digital loan processing, strong operational controls, timely customer onboarding, effective sales-agent administration and consistent service delivery, supporting the scaling of private employer payroll and annuitants lending, as well as the government payroll lending product.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day activities of the Credit and Operations back-office team, monitor the loan processing journey and fix bottlenecks and control weaknesses.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, checklists, process maps and operational controls in line with credit policies, product terms, delegated authorities and regulatory requirements.
• Monitor loan application volumes, turnaround times, approval queues and disbursement performance, and escalate cases exceeding service standards.
• Coordinate with Credit, Finance, ICT and Digital teams to resolve system issues and ensure maker-checker controls and exception handling are applied consistently.
• Coordinate the operational onboarding of sales agents, monitor their productivity and flag fraud indicators; maintain agent performance dashboards and reports.
• Supervise and coach Collections Administrators, the Customer Experience Administrator and the Recovery Officer, set priorities, run performance reviews and plan staffing and workload.
• Monitor operational risks, disbursement documentation, collection and recovery reports, and support compliance reviews, internal audits and regulatory inspections.
• Prepare operational dashboards and management reports, analyse trends and recommend improvements.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, banking, business administration, operations management or another relevant discipline.
• At least five years of relevant experience in banking, microfinance, digital lending, credit operations or financial services operations.
• At least two years in a supervisory, team leadership or operational coordination role.
• Demonstrated experience managing loan processing workflows, operational controls, reconciliations or service-level performance.
• Experience with core banking systems, loan management systems and digital credit decisioning platforms is highly desirable; experience with sales-agent networks, payroll lending or high-volume digital lending is an advantage.

Required skills

• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and operational reporting tools.
• Operational planning, coordination and problem-solving; analytical thinking and data interpretation.
• Team leadership, coaching and performance management; stakeholder management and communication.