Analyst- Central Rating and Underwriting

Job description

Overview of The Department

Central Rating and Underwriting (CRU) sits within the Risk and Information Management 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 and Sydney.

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.

Job Responsibilities:
· Analysts in CRU are responsible for rating and underwriting credit exposures in their assigned region, industry, and business line.
· Fundamental analysis incorporates a thorough review of business, financial, industry and country risk 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

Desired profile

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
·  Familiarity with global markets (foreign language ability a plus)
·  Specific industry familiarity in travel (airlines, cruiselines, hospitality), financial institutions, or public finance

Qualifications
·  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