Analyst-Risk Management

At American Express, we know that with the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. Whether we’re supporting our customers’ financial confidence to move ahead, taking commerce to new heights, or encouraging people to explore the world, our colleagues are constantly redefining what’s possible — and we’re proud to back each other every step of the way. When you join #TeamAmex, you become part of a diverse community of over 60,000 colleagues, all with a common goal to deliver an exceptional customer experience every day. We back our colleagues with the support they need to thrive, professionally and personally. That’s why we have Amex Flex, our enterprise working model that provides greater flexibility to colleagues while ensuring we preserve the important aspects of our unique in-person culture. Depending on role and business needs, colleagues will either work onsite, in a hybrid model (combination of in-office and virtual days) or fully virtually.

Overview of The Department

Commercial Rating and Underwriting (CRU) sits within the Credit and Fraud Risk (CFR) division and forms the institutional credit risk management function within American Express. The CRU team plays the critical role of assessing and managing the risk of institutional exposures across all business units within American Express, and in all regions globally. Credit exposures are primarily generated through corporate and small business card programs, via merchant service relationships where non-delivery risk exists, and among the securities portfolio held for firm-wide liquidity. CRU is led from Salt Lake City with regional teams in New York, London, Singapore, Sydney and India.

In addition to determining the internal credit rating which drives the probability of default of each exposure, CRU also calculates the loss given default of these obligors while underwriting card programs. As a bank holding company, American Express must comply with the highest global banking standards set by Basel and implemented by the bank’s primarily regulatory, the Federal Reserve.

Analyst will be based out of Bengaluru, India and will be responsible for underwriting credit exposures. Underwriting exposures will incorporate a thorough review of business, financial, industry and country risks coupled with support from internal and external rating model outputs. Assessment includes understanding of the need for credit extension, profitability of the relationship and program structures.

Analysts will have opportunity to interact with various teams across the firm including front office sales, business unit risk partners, and credit administration to perform their critical role.

Desired Skills

• Experience as a credit analyst or underwriter dealing with commercial exposures ranging from small business or middle-market to large, multinational institutions
• Thorough understanding of fundamental financial analysis including the ability to review corporate financial statements to determine the ability of the obligor to honor its credit obligations
• Comfort with GAAP/IFRS accounting standards, corporate valuation, and forecasting
• Familiarity with quantitative credit models (such as Moody’s RiskCalc, CreditEdge, etc) and knowledge of how to interpret the outputs, and when deviation from the model has appropriate defense
• Comfort with public agency ratings and supporting analysis
• Understanding of current macroeconomic trends and how to provide recommendations to improve the PD estimation based on the business cycle
• Experience preparing company-specific and industry-wide credit memorandums

• 0-2 years experience rating and / or underwriting at a leading financial institution or rating agency
• Bachelor’s degree from a top tier university with high GPA and a degree (or substantial coursework) in finance, accounting, economics, or statistics
• Chartered Financial Analyst program candidacy a plus

• Proficiency with MS excel, VBA will be a plus