Manager, Loan & Trade Operations (UOB)- NYC
Global Wholesale/Corporate bank in Midtown Manhattan seeks to hire a Manager, Loan & Trade Finance Operations
Job Description Summary
This is a back-office/middle-office operations management role within a wholesale or corporate bank, focused primarily on loan operations, with an additional responsibility for trade finance operations.
Core responsibility:
Manage the accurate and timely processing and servicing of bilateral and syndicated corporate loans, including funding, disbursements, repayments, interest and fee collections, loan maintenance, reconciliations, and resolving operational issues.
Main Responsibilities
1. Loan Operations — Primary Focus
- Process loan drawdowns, disbursements, rollovers, repayments, interest and fees.
- Manage loan servicing and maintenance, including rate changes, maturity/tenor extensions and amendments.
- Coordinate with Treasury, Credit Administration & Control, and Branch Operations for funding and payments.
- Reconcile accounts and investigate posting errors, payment discrepancies and processing exceptions.
- Handle early repayments and loan restructurings.
- Maintain accurate loan records and documentation.
2. Trade Finance Operations
- Process Letters of Credit (LCs), Standby LCs, Performance Guarantees and Receivables Purchase Financing.
- Review trade documentation and customer instructions.
- Perform transaction and authorization checks.
- Ensure compliance with UCP 600, URDG 758, ISP98 and other ICC rules.
- Perform or coordinate AML, sanctions and KYC checks.
- Work with Compliance, Legal, business units and processing centers.
3. Risk, Controls & Process Improvement
- Ensure transactions comply with bank policies, regulatory requirements and SOPs.
- Identify operational and compliance risks.
- Ensure transactions meet service-level and cutoff deadlines.
- Support audits, management reporting, system testing and process-improvement projects.
- Look for ways to eliminate redundant processes, improve efficiency and reduce errors.
- Participate in business continuity and contingency planning.
Ideal Candidate
The strongest candidate would have:
- 4+ years of Loan Operations experience
- Experience in a wholesale/corporate banking environment
- Strong experience with bilateral and syndicated loans
- Understanding of the full loan lifecycle
- Experience with construction and/or project finance loans is valuable
- Trade finance experience is a strong plus
- Knowledge of LCs, Standby LCs, Performance Guarantees and Receivables Purchase Financing
- Strong reconciliation, data validation and exception-management skills
- A strong risk and controls mindset
- Excellent attention to detail, particularly with interest calculations, repayment schedules and billing
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Banking or related field
This is primarily back-office operations, with significant middle-office/
Best candidate profile: someone currently working in Loan Operations / Loan Administration / Credit Administration & Controls / Loan Servicing at a wholesale or corporate bank, particularly someone handling syndicated and bilateral commercial loans.
For this Manager, Loan & Trade Finance Operations role, I would want the ideal resume to look like a seasoned wholesale/corporate banking Loan Operations professional, rather than a general banking operations candidate.
1. Loan Operations — MUST HAVE
The resume should clearly demonstrate hands-on experience with:
- Bilateral and syndicated commercial loans
- Loan drawdowns/disbursements
- Loan funding
- Principal and interest payments
- Fee calculations and collections
- Loan rollovers
- Loan amendments and maintenance
- Interest-rate changes
- Maturity/tenor extensions
- Early repayments
- Loan restructurings
- Billing and notices
- Account reconciliations
- Exception/error investigation
- Loan servicing throughout the entire loan lifecycle
This is the most important part of the candidate's background.
2. Wholesale/Corporate Banking
I would strongly favor candidates who have worked for a:
- Foreign wholesale bank
- Corporate/commercial bank
- International bank
- Investment/transaction bank
- Large financial institution
The candidate should understand that these are corporate/institutional loans, not consumer lending or retail banking.
3. Syndicated Loan Experience
This is particularly important.
Look for experience working with:
- Agent banks
- Lenders/participants
- Borrowers
- Credit Administration
- Treasury
- Relationship Managers
- Legal
- Compliance
- Loan documentation
- Syndication settlements
A candidate who has spent several years processing syndicated and bilateral loans would be a very strong match.
4. Trade Finance — BIG PLUS
The ideal resume would also show experience with:
- Letters of Credit
- Standby Letters of Credit
- Performance Guarantees
- Receivables Purchase Financing
- Trade loans
- Import/export financing
- LC amendments
- Trade documentation
And ideally knowledge of:
- UCP 600
- ISP98
- URDG 758
- ISBP
- ICC rules
I would consider this a secondary qualification. I would not reject an otherwise excellent Loan Operations candidate simply because their trade-finance experience is limited.
5. Controls / Risk / Compliance
The resume should demonstrate strong operational-control experience, such as:
- Reconciliations
- Transaction validation
- Exception management
- Audit support
- Internal controls
- Operational risk
- AML/KYC
- Sanctions screening
- Regulatory compliance
- SOP adherence
- Process controls
This role requires someone who is extremely detail-oriented and comfortable working in a controlled banking environment.
6. Systems
The ideal candidate would have experience with commercial loan-processing systems. Loan IQ would be particularly attractive, along with systems such as:
- ACBS
- ClearPar
- Other syndicated loan platforms
- Treasury/payment systems
- SWIFT
- Trade-finance systems
Excel should also be strong, particularly for reconciliation, data validation and reporting.
PFPM#