Portfolio Performance & Collections Lead

Job title : Portfolio Performance & Collections Lead

Job Summary

• The Portfolio Performance & Collections Lead will own the performance of Seamless' lending portfolio from disbursement through repayment, cure, recovery, or write-off. The role will build and lead Seamless collections capability across payroll collections, digital repayment channels, early-stage collections, delinquency management, and recovery. It will also establish the portfolio analytics and early-warning framework required to identify emerging risk before it translates into material losses. This is not a traditional debt recovery role. We are looking for a highly analytical operator who can combine portfolio management, collections strategy, technology, data, and operational execution to build a scalable collections capability as our Embedded Finance portfolio grows.

Job Details

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Performance & Early Warning

• Own ongoing monitoring of the live lending portfolio across products, employers and customer segments.
• Develop and maintain portfolio performance views including collection rates, FPD, PAR, vintage/cohort performance, roll rates, cure rates and portfolio loss rates.
• Analyse performance by employer, product, ticket size, tenor and other relevant risk dimensions.
• Identify emerging deterioration and concentration risks early and recommend appropriate interventions.
• Partner with Credit Risk to translate observed portfolio behaviour into changes to underwriting, eligibility, limits and credit policy where required.
• Establish clear portfolio thresholds, triggers and escalation protocols.

Collections Strategy & Operations

• Design and continuously improve end-to-end collections strategies across the delinquency lifecycle.
• Define treatment paths, contact strategies, escalation rules, repayment arrangements and recovery journeys for different customer segments.
• Own operational performance from the first failed repayment through cure, recovery or write-off.
• Build and manage early-stage tele-collections capability.
• Establish processes for customers who leave employment, drop off payroll or otherwise lose their primary repayment route.
• Drive strong cure rates while ensuring appropriate and respectful customer treatment.

Repayment & Collections Infrastructure

• Act as business owner for Seamless collections infrastructure and repayment capabilities.
• Work with Product and Engineering to improve payroll collections, direct debit/mandate solutions, payment retries, alternative payment channels and customer self-service repayment journeys.
• Manage relationships and performance with third-party collection/payment providers.
• Identify opportunities to replace manual processes and fragmented third-party solutions with scalable internal capabilities where commercially justified.
• Define business requirements for a collections management/orchestration platform as the portfolio scales.

Data, Automation & AI

• Partner with Data/CDS and Engineering to progressively automate portfolio monitoring and collections decisioning.
• Develop data-led customer segmentation and prioritisation for collections activity.
• Define use cases for predictive models, including probability of default/delinquency, cure propensity and next-best-action.
• Drive automation of reminders, payment retries, collections queues and treatment strategies where appropriate.
• Ensure collections decisions and interventions can be measured and continuously improved through experimentation.

Employer & Payroll Collections

• Partner closely with Customer Success to strengthen collections processes with employers and payroll teams.
• Establish early-warning mechanisms for employee resignation, termination, payroll suspension , and other employment changes.
• Monitor employer-level collection performance and escalate systemic payroll or remittance issues.
• Ensure employees leaving payroll are rapidly transitioned into appropriate alternative repayment journeys.

Recovery & External Partners

• Own performance of external recovery partners and agencies.
• Establish clear referral criteria, SLAs, recovery targets and reporting requirements.
• Monitor recovery rates, cost-to-collect and overall recovery economics.
• Recommend appropriate escalation and write-off actions in partnership with Credit Risk and Finance.

Finance & Reconciliation

• Partner with Finance to ensure alignment between scheduled collections, operational collection records and actual cash received.
• Support robust month-end reconciliation of collections and settlement positions with financing partners.
• Investigate and resolve material collection or settlement discrepancies.
• Ensure portfolio reporting reconciles appropriately with financier and financial reporting.

Cross-Functional Relationships

This role will operate as part of a cross-functional portfolio and collections capability and will work particularly closely with:

• Credit Risk—underwriting performance, portfolio risk appetite, and policy feedback
• Product—repayment and collections journeys
• Engineering—integrations, automation, and collections infrastructure
• Decisioning/Data—portfolio analytics, decisioning, and predictive models
• Customer Success—employer relationships, payroll issues, and employee exits
• Finance—cash, settlement, and financier reconciliation
• Legal & Compliance—mandates, customer treatment, recovery practices, and regulatory requirements
• External Partners—payment providers, collection agencies, and recovery partners

Team Leadership

The Portfolio Performance & Collections Lead will initially manage a lean team comprising:

• Portfolio/Collections Operations Analyst
• Collections Officers

The role will recommend how the team and technology capability should scale as the portfolio grows.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance will be assessed across measures including:

• Collection rate
• First Payment Default
• PAR7 / PAR30 / PAR60 / PAR90
• Roll rates and cure rates
• Portfolio/vintage loss rate
• Payroll-break resolution rate
• Recovery rate
• Cost-to-collect
• Employer-level collection performance
• Collections SLA adherence
• Accuracy and timeliness of portfolio reporting

Requirements

• 5 – 8+ years' relevant experience in digital lending, consumer finance, fintech, banking or a comparable credit environment.
• Strong experience in at least two of the following: portfolio analytics, collections strategy, credit risk, lending operations or digital collections.
• Demonstrable ability to analyse lending portfolio data and translate insights into operational or policy decisions.
• Strong understanding of delinquency management, repayment journeys and collections lifecycle management.
• Experience working with digital payment/repayment infrastructure is highly desirable.
• Experience designing collections segmentation, treatment strategies or automated collections journeys is an advantage.
• Strong Excel/data analysis capability; SQL, BI tools or equivalent analytical capability is highly desirable.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering and Data teams.
• Experience managing teams and/or external collections partners.