Analyst-commercial Rating and Underwriting

Analyst-Commercial Rating and Underwriting

**You Lead the Way. We've Got Your Back.**

With the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. When you join Team Amex, you become part of a global and diverse community of colleagues with an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities and each other. Here, you'll learn and grow as we help you create a career journey that's unique and meaningful to you with benefits, programs, and flexibility that support you personally and professionally.

At American Express, you'll be recognized for your contributions, leadership, and impact-every colleague has the opportunity to share in the company's success. Together, we'll win as a team, striving to uphold our company values and powerful backing promise to provide the world's best customer experience every day. And we'll do it with the utmost integrity, and in an environment where everyone is seen, heard and feels like they belong.

Join Team Amex and let's lead the way together.

**Overview of The Department**

Commercial Rating and Underwriting (CRU) sits within the Credit and Fraud Risk (CFR) 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 with 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, Sydney and India.

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 primary regulatory authority, the Federal Reserve.

**Job responsibilities**
- Analyst will be **based in **S**ingapore **and will be responsible for rating and underwriting credit exposures for the Japan market. Fluency in Japanese is a must as you will be required to read Japanese financial statements and also liaise with Japanese stakeholders in spoken Japanese.
- Fundamental analysis incorporates a thorough review of business, financials, industry and country risks 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.
- As an Analyst, you will have the opportunity to interact with various teams across the firm including front office sales, business unit risk partners, and credit administration to perform their critical role.
- As an Analyst, you will also be part of CRU Analytical and Operational Excellence team which is responsible for developing analytical frameworks, quality controls and colleague learning & development processes.

**Desired Skills**
- Experience as a credit analyst or underwriter dealing with commercial exposures ranging from small business to middle-market to large, multinationals.
- Thorugh 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 rationale.
- 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.

**Qualifications**
- 0-2 years experience rating and/or underwriting at a leading financial 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.
- Proficiency with MS excel, VBA a plus.

**Qualifications**

We back our colleagues and their loved ones with benefits and programs that support their holistic well-being. That means we prioritize their physical, financial, and mental health through each stage of life. Benefits include:

- Competitive base salaries
- Bonus incentives
- Support for financial-well-being and retirement
- Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location)
- Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
- Generous paid pa