Product Manager - Unsecured Lending Portfolio Economics at Absa Bank Limited

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

The Product Manager: Portfolio Economics is responsible for the economic performance of the Unsecured Lending portfolio. This role owns the end-to-end value of the portfolio and is accountable for maximising risk-adjusted lifetime value (LTV). This is achieved through data-driven optimisation of revenue, product offerings across the customer lifecycle, channel mix, and customer experience, while operating within the organisation’s regulatory requirements and risk appetite.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

The role sits at the intersection of:

• Product Strategy

• Portfolio Economics

• Risk-adjusted Sustainable Growth

The primary objective is to continuously improve portfolio profitability and sustainable growth.

Product Strategy & Roadmap

Define and execute the Unsecured Lending product strategy aligned to overall PPB strategy, strongly underpinned by data and insights from across the franchise.

Develop, manage and support the product roadmap (including STP / strategic initiatives).

Identify growth opportunities across new-to-bank and existing customers.

Drive innovation to improve competitiveness and market positioning.

Financial & Commercial Management

Own product P&L performance (revenue, margin, impairments, cost-to-income).

Monitor pricing, yield optimisation, and portfolio performance.

Drive sales growth while balancing risk appetite and credit performance.

Ensure strong forecasting and financial planning.

Embed and drive data-driven decisions across the value chain.

Risk & Credit Alignment

Partner with Credit, Risk, and Analytics to: Align to risk appetite frameworks

Monitor impairments, NPL trends, and early arrears

Optimise approval rates and cut-off strategies

Ensure regulatory compliance and responsible lending practices.

Channel & Distribution Management

Optimise performance across channels (Digital, Branch, Assisted, Campaigns).

Drive profit optimization through efficient channel mix strategy

Partner with Data Science function to champion propensity and trigger based models.

Own customer journey experience through data analytics

Stakeholder Management

Work cross-functionally with:

• Risk & Credit

• Data Science and MI

• Finance

• Marketing

• Digital & Technology

• Operations

• Legal & Compliance

Present performance updates to Unsecured Lending Personal Loans MBR forums.

Drive alignment across multiple stakeholders to deliver product outcomes.

Governance & Compliance

Ensure compliance with all regulatory requirements (e.g. NCA and related frameworks).

Maintain product documentation, approvals, and audit readiness.

Manage product risk events and remediation where required.

Minimum Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics or related field

5–8+ year’s experience in:

• Credit / Lending Analytics, or

• Product Economics, or

• Data Science

Strong financial and analytics acumen

Experience working with credit risk models, data science projects and unsecured lending portfolios

Key Competencies

• Data-centric decisioning

• Strategic thinking

• Commercial acumen

• Strong stakeholder influence

• Execution & delivery focus

• Customer-centric mindset

• Enterprise project management

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised