Head of Credit & Fraud Risk

About Direct Lending

Direct Lending is a profitable, regulated Malaysian fintech providing simple and responsible financing to bank-credit underserved Malaysians for essential needs — car repairs, motor takaful, and medical bills — and to the merchants that serve them.

We have been profitable for nine consecutive years, hold a KPKT moneylending licence, are Shariah-compliant, and are working toward IPO readiness by 2030. Our loan book has grown 6x in the last two and a half years. We have disbursed to more than 60,000 customers across a network of 3,000+ merchants. Credit quality has held — under 3% of the portfolio is over 60 days overdue — but as we scale toward IPO, credit and fraud risk needs a dedicated owner. That's where this role comes in.

The role

We are hiring a Head of Credit & Fraud Risk to own the credit and fraud policy framework for the company. This is a hands-on leadership role, not an oversight role. You will write credit and fraud policy yourself, build the monitoring framework that flags problems before they reach the founder, and partner closely with our Data Science Lead on the decision rules that turn model output into safe, scalable approvals.

The role reports directly to the Founder & CEO and sits in the leadership team.

Why Join Direct Lending

• Real ownership of credit policy at a growing book. 60,000+ disbursed customers, 6x loan book growth in 2.5 years. You will own the policy framework that protects and scales this book — not operate within someone else's. Your decisions show up in the actual portfolio, not in a steering committee deck.
• Hands-on, move fast, own your work. Direct access to the data, the team, and the founder from day one. The autonomy to set policy, run experiments, and adjust without bureaucracy slowing you down. Decisions are made in days, not months.
• IPO journey, with a real path. A profitable company on a clear path to a 2030 listing. This role has a clear path to Chief Risk Officer as the risk committee is formed and IPO preparation progresses. The path is real and earned through milestones — not granted at hire.

What you will own

1. Credit policy ownership

• Own the credit policy framework end-to-end — underwriting rules, scoring cutoffs, exception logic, segment policies, and the operating standards the credit team works to.
• Write the policy yourself, not approve someone else's draft
• Ensure consistency in underwriting decisions across the credit team
• Defend policy decisions with evidence to the founder, board, and eventually the risk committee

2. Fraud policy ownership.

• Own fraud risk policy across application fraud, identity fraud, merchant fraud and emerging fraud patterns. Fraud is a named, first-class mandate in this role — not a sub-section of credit
• Build fraud detection logic in partnership with the Data Science Lead and the tech team
• Stay current on fraud trends in the Malaysian and regional lending market

3. Monitoring framework — build and run

• Design, build, and run the monitoring framework that tells us how the book is performing — leading indicators, anomaly detection, cohort analysis, segment-level performance, fraud signals
• Spot deterioration in approval rate, default rate, and NPL trends proactively — before they reach the founder
• Conduct deep-dive analysis on portfolio segments to identify risk concentration and emerging credit trends

4. Leading the Credit Team.

• Lead a credit team of 8, setting the policy framework and operating standards they work to
• Develop the team's analytical capability — move them from execution to thinking
• Sit close enough to the team to know what is actually happening in the book

5. Partnership with the Data Science Lead

• Our Data Science Lead owns the credit and fraud models. You own the policy that the models implement — score cutoffs, decision rules, override logic, and how model output translates into Green / Grey / Red zone routing
• Collaborate on alternative data evaluation and responsible deployment
• Be the credit policy voice in model deployment decisions

6. Loan book health, end-to-end view.

• Be the single person — alongside the founder — who can answer how is the book doing, and why at any point in time, with evidence

Who we are looking for

• Experience: 12 to 15 years total, with 3+ years in credit risk leadership at a consumer lender — bank, fintech, BNPL, credit card, or similar. You have personally written credit policy, not just operated within one.
• Domain: Consumer unsecured lending. You understand how thin-file applicants are underwritten, how alternative data signals can extend access responsibly, and how fraud patterns evolve in digital lending.
• Cycle experience: You have held a credit risk role through at least one stress event — COVID, a sharp rate move, a fraud wave, or a portfolio shock. You know how a book actually breaks, not just how it behaves in a benign environment.
• Hands-on instinct: You do not wait to be told. You monitor, you question, you bring recommendations forward before anyone asks. You read the loan tape yourself. You sit with the credit team on hard cases. You spot anomalies in the data before the dashboard alerts.
• Analytical depth: You are comfortable with data — SQL, basic Python or R, comfortable interpreting model output. You don't need to build the models yourself, but you need to understand them well enough to challenge them, defend them, and decide how to use them.
• Communication: You can explain a credit policy decision to the credit team, to the founder, to an investor, and to a regulator — in language each can act on. You write clearly.
• Ownership: You decide and defend. When asked why a policy change was made, you have a clear, evidence-based answer. You are comfortable being challenged and willing to revise your position when the evidence thickens.

Working at Direct Lending

We value direct communication, evidence-based decision-making, and people who take ownership without being told. Our values are:

• Right thing, always — act with integrity
• Ownership — own outcomes, not tasks
• One team — collaborate, never silo
• Today's best is tomorrow's benchmark — improve continuously
• Serve customers first — every decision starts with the customer