BNPL Risk Lead

About Abound

We’re redefining consumer lending in the UK, and beyond. Using advanced AI and Open Banking data, we make fair, affordable personal finance available to more people. While traditional lenders rely almost entirely on credit scores, we look at the full financial picture - how much you spend, and what you can afford to repay to build a deeper, more accurate understanding of each customer's unique financial situation.

And we've shown it works at scale. We’ve issued over £1.3bn in loans directly to customers while delivering market-leading credit performance - for every 10 defaults the industry expects, we see only 3. We also reached profitability just 2.5 years after launch.

Backed by £2bn+ of funding from top-tier investors including Citi, GSR Ventures, and Deutsche Bank, we’re recognised as one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintechs (Sifted, CNBC). Now, we’re expanding into new markets and product lines - and we’re looking for ambitious people who want to learn fast, take ownership, and grow with us.

About the role

We are hiring a Retail Finance Risk Lead to take full ownership of risk management across our retail finance product suite. This is a senior, hands-on role with broad scope – spanning credit decisioning, credit risk measurement, fraud risk management, product design, funding compliance, merchant throttling, and impairment – with direct accountability for how risk is identified, measured, managed, and reported.

The successful candidate will act as the business’s primary risk authority for retail finance products, working closely with product, data science, finance, and senior leadership teams. This role requires both strategic thinking and a willingness to get into the detail: you will set the framework and own the outcomes.

What you'll be doing

Credit Decisioning & Risk Measurement

• Define and maintain credit risk metrics, concentration limits, and portfolio triggers, ensuring consistent measurement across products.

• Drive risk-based analysis to inform appetite, cut-off adjustments, and portfolio strategy.

• Manage merchant concentration risk and manage the risk framework

Product Design & Commercialisation

• Act as the risk lead counterpart for new product development, providing risk input from concept through to launch.

• Assess and articulate risk-return trade-offs to support commercially sound product design decisions.

• Identify and monitor novel product risks (e.g. Section 75, merchant concentration) and ensure appropriate governance is in place.

Funding & Compliance

• Ensure adherence to internally defined risk limits and externally defined triggers arising from funding and warehouse arrangements.

• Act as a key point of contact for funders, auditors, and advisors on credit and product risk matters.

• Lead risk-related workstreams for funding due diligence, warehouse renewals, and external reviews.

Merchant Throttling

• Own the merchant risk framework, including criteria for throttling, suspension, or enhanced monitoring of merchant partners.

• Develop and maintain oversight of merchant-level concentration and performance metrics.

• Work closely with commercial and product teams to balance growth objectives with risk limits.

Impairment & Provisioning

• Oversee the impairment framework, including IFRS 9 staging logic, ECL model governance, and assumptions.

• Partner with finance to ensure provisions are accurate, defensible, and well-communicated.

• Monitor forward-looking indicators and macroeconomic overlays, escalating where necessary.

Governance & Reporting

• Provide clear, structured risk updates to Product Steering Committees, Board Risk Committees, and senior management.

• Proactively identify emerging risks and ensure timely escalation and remediation.

• Define and maintain standardised reporting frameworks, ensuring consistency and comparability as the business scales.

Who you are

• A decisive, commercially minded risk professional with full-stack ownership mentality – comfortable setting strategy and executing in the detail.

• Technically strong across credit risk disciplines: decisioning, modelling, impairment, funding, and portfolio monitoring.

• Naturally collaborative, able to work effectively with data scientists, product managers, finance, and senior leadership.

• Confident challenging assumptions and narratives constructively, with a track record of influencing outcomes.

• Highly organised and execution-focused, with strong stakeholder management skills.

• Credible and composed when engaging with funders, auditors, and board-level audiences.

• At least 3 years’ experience working directly with a relevant retail finance product such as BNPL, Unsecured Personal Loans, retail credit, or point-of-sale finance – with a strong understanding of the product lifecycle and associated risk dynamics.

• Broad credit risk expertise spanning decisioning, risk measurement, product risk, funding/warehouse compliance, and impairment/IFRS 9.

• Experience owning or contributing to impairment frameworks (IFRS 9 ECL), including staging logic, model governance, and macroeconomic overlays.

• Familiarity with merchant risk management or B2B2C risk structures is advantageous.

• Track record of engaging with funders, auditors, or rating agencies on risk and credit performance topics.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to present complex risk topics clearly to senior and non-technical audiences.

• Comfortable working closely with data scientists and getting into quantitative detail, without necessarily being a practitioner modeller.

Why Abound

• Own a genuinely broad and senior risk role with full accountability across the risk lifecycle for retail finance.

• Work closely with the CRO, senior leadership, product teams, and external stakeholders in a high-trust, high-visibility position.

• Help shape the risk framework for a fast-scaling fintech expanding into new markets and product lines.

• Real responsibility and impact from day one, with the opportunity to build and develop a team as the business grows.

What we offer

• Everyone owns a piece of the company – equity.

• Hybrid working with 3 days a week in the office.

• 25 days’ holiday a year, plus 8 bank holidays.

• 2 paid volunteering days per year.

• One month paid sabbatical after 4 years.

• Employee loan.

• Free gym membership.

• Team wellness budget to be active together – set up a yoga class, a tennis lesson or go bouldering.