Day 1 — Foundations, Governance, and Credit Risk Assessment
Module 1: Foundations of Risk and Compliance in Credit Operations
- The credit lifecycle and the key control points at each stage: origination, appraisal, approval, disbursement, monitoring, collection, and write-off
- Principles of risk control and compliance management
- The three lines model: who owns, who oversees, and who assures credit risk
- Governance, board and credit committee responsibilities, and regulatory accountability
- Risk appetite and credit policy: turning limits into daily practice
- How compliance frameworks have evolved, and where regulators are heading
- Institutional failures: lessons from credit and compliance breakdowns in African and global banks
- Case Study: trace a failed lending decision through the lifecycle and identify the control points that did not work
Module 2: Credit Risk Identification and Assessment
- Categories of credit and operational risk: default, concentration, counterparty, country, currency-induced credit risk, fraud, and conduct risk
- Transaction-level and portfolio-level exposure
- Customer due diligence (CDD) and know-your-customer (KYC) as part of credit assessment, including beneficial ownership
- Character, capacity, capital, collateral, and conditions: analysing financial statements and cash flow
- Affordability and over-indebtedness checks, and the use of credit bureau data
- Risk scoring models, rating tools, and exposure analysis
- Early warning indicators in credit processes and in the borrower's behaviour
- Climate and sustainability factors in credit risk, and sector risks such as agriculture, commodities, and energy
- Practical Exercise: assess a loan application, score its risk, and decide on the conditions that should apply
Day 2 — Internal Controls and Regulatory Frameworks
Module 3: Internal Controls in Credit Operations
- Designing an effective control environment, and mapping risks to controls
- Segregation of duties and maker–checker controls
- Controls across loan origination, appraisal, and approval, including delegated authority and limits
- Disbursement controls and the prevention of payment fraud
- Post-disbursement monitoring and credit review systems
- Documentation standards, security perfection, and collateral management and valuation
- Testing controls: design and operating effectiveness, and control self-assessment
- Practical Exercise: build a risk and control matrix for the credit process in your own institution, and rate the strength of each control
Module 4: Regulatory and Compliance Frameworks
- Central bank and prudential requirements across Africa, including the South African Reserve Bank Prudential Authority, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Central Bank of Kenya, the Bank of Ghana, and the Bank of Zambia
- Basel standards and their local rollout: the phased implementation of the Basel III post-crisis reforms for credit risk, and the proposed revised credit restructures directive in South Africa
- Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT): FATF Recommendations, the risk-based approach, and risk management and compliance programmes
- What the exit of South Africa from the FATF grey list in October 2025 means in practice, and why mutual evaluations still matter for every country
- Targeted financial sanctions screening in lending
- Consumer credit conduct: the National Credit Act in South Africa, reckless lending, affordability, fair terms, and disclosure
- Digital lending regulation, including the Nigerian digital lending regulations of 2025 and the regimes for digital and non-deposit-taking lenders in other markets
- Data protection in credit processing: POPIA, the Nigeria Data Protection Act, the Kenya Data Protection Act, and the use of credit bureau data
- Legal documentation and contractual compliance
- Consequences and penalties for non-compliance, including regulator enforcement trends
- Case Study: review a loan file against AML/CFT, affordability, and data privacy requirements, and list the compliance gaps
Day 3 — Risk Mitigation, Monitoring, and Reporting
Module 5: Risk Mitigation and Control Strategies
- Designing mitigation plans for identified risks
- Collateral frameworks: types, valuation, haircuts, perfection, and enforceability in different jurisdictions
- Guarantees, credit insurance, and credit risk mitigation recognised by regulators
- Credit limits, concentration limits, and portfolio diversification
- Managing operational, legal, and reputational risks in lending
- Embedding compliance into business strategy and product design
- Monitoring residual and emerging risks
- Practical Exercise: design a mitigation plan for a concentrated corporate exposure, with limits, security, and monitoring triggers
Module 6: Monitoring, Reporting, and Audit in Credit Operations
- Risk and compliance reporting frameworks, and what the board and regulators need to see
- Key risk indicators (KRIs) and risk dashboards, including early warning thresholds
- Portfolio quality metrics: arrears, roll rates, vintage analysis, and concentration
- Continuous monitoring and periodic compliance reviews
- Coordinating internal audit, external audit, and regulator inspections
- Common audit and inspection findings in credit operations
- Corrective action planning, ownership, and follow-up
- Practical Exercise: build a credit risk dashboard with ten indicators, thresholds, and escalation actions
Day 4 — Problem Loans, Provisioning, and Ethics
Module 7: Managing Non-Performing Loans and Credit Failures
- Early identification of deteriorating accounts
- Expected credit loss provisioning: the staging approach under IFRS 9, significant increase in credit risk, and the link to regulatory provisioning requirements
- Regulatory treatment of non-performing loans, restructured loans, and forbearance
- Compliance considerations in restructuring and recovery: fair treatment, notice requirements, and limits on collection practices
- Enforcing security, write-offs, and recoveries
- Root cause analysis of credit defaults
- Case studies and lessons learned from NPL crises in African banking markets
- Case Study: classify a set of troubled accounts into stages, calculate a simple provision, and decide whether to restructure or recover
Module 8: Ethical and Behavioural Dimensions of Compliance
- Building a culture of integrity and accountability
- Ethical dilemmas in credit decision-making, including conflicts of interest, insider lending, and pressure to meet targets
- Internal and external credit fraud: typologies, red flags, and the behavioural drivers of fraud
- Leadership responsibility in control environments
- Whistleblowing frameworks, protection of reporters, and transparency mechanisms
- Aligning personal conduct with institutional compliance
- Practical Exercise: role-play a credit committee facing pressure to approve a doubtful loan, and decide how to respond
Day 5 — Technology, Sustainable Frameworks, and Action Planning
Module 9: Technology and Automation in Risk and Compliance
- Data analytics for proactive risk monitoring and portfolio surveillance
- RegTech solutions and compliance automation tools, including automated KYC and transaction monitoring
- Digital credit systems, mobile lending, and fraud prevention, including identity fraud and synthetic identities
- Integrating compliance tracking into credit platforms
- AI and machine learning in credit scoring and monitoring: model risk, explainability, bias, and the human oversight regulators expect
- Governing third-party and fintech partners in the lending chain
- Cyber and data security in credit operations
- Practical Exercise: test a simple credit scoring rule set for bias and explainability, and write the control requirements for its use
Module 10: Building a Sustainable Risk and Compliance Framework
- Developing an institutional compliance roadmap
- Integrating risk control into credit strategy and product development
- Cross-functional collaboration for governance
- Capacity building and continuous professional development
- Case studies: successful compliance transformation journeys
- Case Study: integrated capstone: review a lender's credit process end to end, rank the control and compliance gaps, and present a prioritised remediation plan
Closing Session: Action Planning
Action Planning
- Review of the five days
- Identifying quick wins for your own credit control and compliance environment
- Drawing up a personal action plan, with specific actions and dates
- Programme evaluation
