Summary

As a member of OCC’s Credit Risk Management team you will help safeguard OCC from counterparties who exhibit elevated credit or operational risk or lack appropriate risk management programs. Credit Risk Associates are responsible for identifying, measuring, monitoring, managing, and reporting various risks and exposures introduced to OCC by clearing members, banks, and other critical counterparties.

Credit Risk Associates will learn the risks present within the clearing industry and the participating financial entities, including broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, commercial banks, pension funds, and financial market utilities. They work with Senior Associates to build and manage overall risk profiles of counterparties through several direct and ancillary processes, including:

• Monitor ongoing creditworthiness of counterparties and their compliance with OCC rules and other regulatory requirements, material news and event disclosures, interact with counterparties to identify root cause of issues or concerns, and escalate issues requiring enhanced surveillance to department management and internal working groups so appropriate actions can be taken
• Independently analyze financial statements to identify levels and trends in key metrics and ratios
• Perform and document assessments on clearing member’s risk management policies, procedures, processes, staff, and systems to understand how the member is mitigating its risk to OCC 
• Manage the applications of new counterparties and document results for presentation to senior management and Board Risk Committee for approval
• Collaborate with other Financial Risk Management teams and counterparty-facing departments to assess all risks posed by counterparties
• Assist counterparties with their inquiries regarding OCC risk policies and procedures as well as time-sensitive questions regarding margin requirements and position movements
• Support risk system, data, and risk methodology development from a Credit Risk business user perspective
• Develop and conduct advanced data analytics and reporting to identify and analyze causal links and meaningful relationships (e.g., correlations, distributions, percentiles) across large and/or multi-sourced data sets and determine best methods and visuals to communicate analytical insights to support executive decision making
• Maintain and adhere to written policies and procedures
• Participate in procedure-related control testing activities
• Support regulatory reporting obligations

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (preferably in Risk Management, Accounting, (Computational/Quantitative) Finance, or Economics) or equivalent work experience
• Analytical and problem-solving skills and the ability to work in a collaborative environment
• Proficient in Microsoft Office, including Excel experience using lookups and pivot tables to perform data analysis, and comfortable developing PowerPoint presentations
• Excellent organization skills – must be detail oriented
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Comfortable working in a customer service-oriented environment, addressing questions from both OCC colleagues and OCC counterparties, engaging users to understand issues and identify root causes, and escalating incidents to appropriate teams
• Ability to work well under pressure with multiple priorities and time-sensitive deadlines

Preferred Qualifications

• 0-2 years of counterparty credit risk or relevant financial services industry experience
• Basic understanding of the financial services industry, including the financial, market, liquidity and operational risks of broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, commercial banks, pension funds, and financial market utilities
• Basic understanding of securities markets, derivatives, and option trading strategies
• Coding experience with SQL and other data analytics tools (e.g., Tableau, Python, R, VBA macros)
• Programming experience to help build and maintain the team’s self-automated processes
• Experience using Bloomberg and/or S&P Global Market Intelligence, and the technical ability to connect these tools to Excel
• Ability to read and understand financial statements, brokerage statements, and accounting records
• Introductory knowledge of regulatory rules and regulations related to the SEC/CFTC
• Basic understanding of counterparty credit analysis including awareness of the CAMEL(S) rating methodology and other rating systems
• Desire to earn, or progress towards, a CFA or FRM certification