Senior Analyst - Credit Risk & Eligibility

Join our Credit Eligibility team at M-KOPA. We're growing our Credit Eligibility team and looking for a Senior Analyst to help shape M-KOPA's credit risk and eligibility decisions for millions of people across Africa. Your analysis will directly influence who gets a loan, on what terms, and how we manage risk at scale – work that sits at the intersection of financial inclusion and rigorous data science.

The Impact

• Your analysis will determine who gets access to credit – and for most of our customers, that access is transformational. We have already unlocked more than $2 billion in credit to over 7 million customers across five African markets.
• 55% of our customers are accessing a financial product for the first time through M-KOPA.
• 86% report an improvement in their quality of life.

The Opportunity

• Mission-driven analytics: Your daily work – building underwriting frameworks, refining loan pricing, monitoring credit performance – directly determines who gets access to affordable credit across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.
• Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME 100 as one of the world’s most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa’s fastest-growing for four consecutive years (2022–2025).
• Scale challenges: We process over 2 million payments daily and add 200,000 new customers every month. You’ll be working with repayment data at a scale very few analysts ever encounter.
• Environmental impact: We’re carbon-negative, having avoided over 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions – and growing sustainably is core to how we operate.

What You’ll Do

At M-KOPA, you’ll own the analytical work that drives our lending strategy. Our Credit Eligibility team operates with a high degree of autonomy – you’ll work cross-functionally with engineers, data scientists, growth managers, and commercial stakeholders across multiple countries, bringing analytical rigor to decisions that shape both credit performance and customer outcomes.

• Analyse M-KOPA’s repayments data and other data sources to continuously improve credit scorecards and eligibility criteria while managing credit risk.
• Refine loan pricing based on credit analysis and customer behaviour.
• Test new loan types to understand customer demand and credit performance.
• Monitor credit performance to detect risk shifts and quantify margin impact.
• Test the predictiveness of new data sets for eligibility criteria purposes.
• Use Python, SQL, and other tools to drive data insights.
• Work with data scientists to leverage machine learning models as part of loan eligibility decisions.

Your Technical Environment

• Languages & tools: Python, SQL, and other analytical tooling.
• Data: Repayments data, customer behaviour data, third-party data sets.
• Modelling: Risk modeling and statistical analysis across large, complex data sets.
• Collaboration: Cross-functional work with engineers, data scientists, analysts, growth managers, and commercial stakeholders.
• Context: Credit, underwriting, and lending analytics in emerging markets.

Our Team Approach

• Low-ego, high-impact: We foster a collaborative environment where diversity, innovation, and rigor drive both commercial growth and social impact.
• Data-driven decision-making: You’ll be empowered to make the case for prioritisation and own the analysis that shapes lending strategy.
• Ownership: You’ll have a high degree of ownership over your domain – and the responsibility that comes with it.
• Ambiguous problems welcome: We look for people who thrive when the problem isn’t fully defined yet.
• Newly established, fast-expanding: You’ll be joining at a formative moment for our credit and underwriting capabilities.

What You Need

We’re looking for someone with experience in roles with significant analytical components who is ready to take real ownership of credit and eligibility decisions at scale.

• Strong statistical modelling and quantitative analysis skills, including the ability to conduct your own analysis of unstructured data.
• Experience in credit, underwriting, or lending analytics.
• Fluency in Python, SQL, and other relevant analytical tools.
• Experience translating complex data insights into actionable business strategies.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with product, engineering, and commercial teams.
• Strong data communication skills – written, oral, and visual.
• Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills.

Location & Benefits

• Fully remote role within UTC –1 to UTC +3 time zones.
• Work with diverse teams across UK, Europe, and Africa.
• Professional development programmes and coaching partnerships.
• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements.
• Well-being support and career growth opportunities.

Our Mission

We make financing for everyday essentials accessible to everyone. We strive to drive greater inclusion of women, youth, and low-income communities.

Our Impact

• Connected: 2.5 million first-time smartphone users connected.
• Prosperous: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35,000 livelihoods created for agents.
• Green: 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy products, with over 127,700 circular economy products provided.

Ready to build credit systems that create real-world financial inclusion while advancing your career in data and analytics? Apply now.

Why M-KOPA?

At M-KOPA, we empower our people to own their careers through diverse development programs, coaching partnerships, and on-the-job training. We support individual journeys with family-friendly policies, prioritise well-being, and embrace flexibility.

M-KOPA is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained staff. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

M-KOPA explicitly prohibits the use of forced or child labour and respects the rights of its employees to agree to terms and conditions of employment voluntarily, without coercion, and freely terminate their employment on appropriate notice. M-KOPA shall ensure that its Employees are of legal working age and shall comply with local laws for youth employment or student work, such as internships or apprenticeships.

M-KOPA does not collect or charge any money as a pre-employment or post-employment requirement. We never ask for recruitment fees, processing fees, interview fees, or any other kind of money in exchange for offer letters or interviews at any time during the hiring process.

Applications for this position will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Shortlisting and interviews will take place at any stage during the recruitment process. We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a suitable candidate is selected before the advertised closing date. Pre-employment background checks are part of the recruitment process, including criminal records, identification verification, academic qualifications, employment dates and employer references.