Retail Credit Quality Assurance Specialist in Milton Keynes

About us
At Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, our employees are at the heart of our business. Our colleagues provide a range of financial solutions designed around the changing needs of our diverse customers. It doesn’t matter the colour of your skin, the beliefs you value, the people you love or the tattoos you wear, we support you for being you. Through the doors of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, you will find a passionate team working to support our customers and our colleagues. We ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to learn and develop. We want to celebrate your individuality, embrace your personality and welcome you into our culture. It’s the differences of our colleagues that enable us to thrive. We believe our backgrounds, skills and cultures contribute to our shared culture and help us deliver outstanding Customer Experience. Inclusion is the driving force behind our ethos. At MBFS, we are proud to be a Menopause Friendly Accredited Employer, reflecting our ongoing commitment to creating a supportive and inclusive workplace. We offer wellbeing support options and resources for colleagues experiencing menopause and to those who are supporting someone through it.

How you’ll play your part
In this role, you will independently review retail credit underwriting decisions to ensure that they are made in line with internal credit procedures, delegated authority frameworks and applicable regulatory requirements, including FCA CONC obligations, supporting the delivery of consistent, fair and compliant customer outcomes.

Main Accountabilities
Reporting into the Quality Assurance Manager, you will conduct daily, timely and structured reviews of retail credit underwriting decisions using a defined Quality Assurance (QA) framework and methodology. Assess whether decisions are consistent with internal credit policies and procedures, delegated authority limits and approval frameworks and FCA CONC requirements relating to creditworthiness, affordability and responsible lending. Ensure evidence supporting decisions is appropriate, complete and clearly documented. Apply a risk-based sampling approach to select cases for review, ensuring appropriate coverage across underwriter mandates, decision types and risk segments. Perform reviews in line with established QA standards to ensure consistency, objectivity and auditability. Clearly document all QA outcomes, including scoring, rationale and findings in accordance with QA governance requirements. Identify and analyse trends, control weaknesses and recurring issues arising from QA reviews. Conduct root cause analysis to determine underlying drivers of procedural breaches or gaps, inconsistent decision-making and control failures. This includes considering the adequacy of controls at all stages of a process to mitigate potential harm to customers and/or MBFS and highlighting change candidates for review and improvement. Provide clear, constructive and evidence-based feedback to underwriting management with targeted recommendations to improve underwriting quality, consistency and compliance. Contribute to training programmes, process improvements and procedure refinement. Where required, support calibration sessions to ensure consistent interpretation of credit policy. Take ownership of your recommendations and actively monitor the progress of resulting changes, ensuring they are effectively embedded in future reviews and processes. Produce regular QA reporting, including quality scores and key metrics, emerging risks, root cause insights and recommendations. Escalate material issues, breaches or systemic risks to underwriting management and appropriate governance channels as required. Support committee and governance reporting where underwriting quality or control effectiveness is discussed. Competency assessments must be passed prior to commencing live reviews and levels maintained to ensure that the correct accreditation is in place for the reviews that are being performed. Reviews must be completed in line with defined targets for volume and precision, providing clear, accurate, and constructive feedback on areas that would benefit from improvement. Implementation of informal complaint reviews related to underwriting decisions to align with the wider Operations team.

To remain up to date on all regulatory change and to support with continuous improvement:
Creation of new QA framework and QA scorecard that aligns with business and Compliance requirements. Responsible for regular periodic framework reviews with recommendations for any elements that need to be updated or new additions that need to be considered as our approach evolves to ensure consistent adherence to the agreed framework. Maintain strong working knowledge of relevant regulatory frameworks, including FCA Consumer Credit Sourcebook (CONC), Internal Directives and Procedures. Maintaining knowledge across all in-scope processes following any process or system updates, ensuring adherence to any changes that are introduced. Support responses to internal audit, compliance monitoring, and regulatory reviews where required and actively participate in the implementation of any changes identified to improve the delivery and output of reviews. Engage with Underwriting teams, Credit Risk leadership team, Compliance and Risk functions. Maintain independence while promoting a collaborative and improvement-focused culture.

Providing feedback:
The ability to effectively communicate the outcome of any review and recommendations for improvement, either in writing or verbally, with colleagues and stakeholders at all levels is essential.

About you
Proven experience, 3+ years, in a Quality Assurance role preferably within a credit underwriting environment within the auto finance sector. Strong understanding of FCA regulations, including Consumer Duty, Vulnerable Customers and CONC. Excellent analytical skills and attention to detail. Effective communication and interpersonal skills. Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to make complex information clear and easy to understand. Effective listening, coaching, reasoning and influencing skills. Be self-motivated with a proactive, positive, and determined mindset, with a willingness to overcome challenges. Ability to mark reviews fairly, consistently, objectively and compliantly within set guidelines and frameworks. Strong organisational and time management skills to ensure adherence to timeframes and targets. Proactive analytic skills with evidence of critical thinking and logical reasoning, including identifying root causes. Ability to understand and interpret data to provide insight for others. Commitment to professional development and continuous learning.

What’s in it for you?
We’ll offer you a competitive salary and discretionary bonus structure. We also hope you’ll love our products as much as we do, with access to our colleague car schemes. On top of that, you’ll be able to join our pension scheme and you’ll get a flexible benefit pot that can be used to find the benefits that are right for you. We’re here to support you – we offer access to colleague wellbeing resources, including an Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and the Inclusion Advocates as well as flexible opportunities to support work life balance. We’ll also encourage your development, with the training and knowledge you need to reach your potential. Through the doors of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, you’ll find a passionate team working to put our customers first. We know that to keep this team motivated, we need to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity to learn and develop. We celebrate a culture of appreciation and respect, where everyone is valued for who they are. We believe our backgrounds, experiences and cultures contribute to our shared experience and shape who we are and what we do. The diversity of our colleagues reflects the diversity of our customers. This diversity is the driving force behind our ideas.

What’s next?
When you apply, you’ll be asked to complete a short online application where we’ll ask that you include your current CV. You’ll also be asked some application questions, including your current salary information. The Mercedes-Benz recruitment process reflects our obligations under relevant UK legislation. Whilst all applications are carefully considered, we are only able to progress applications from candidates who have the right to work in the United Kingdom. Please be assured that we’re here to support you throughout the recruitment process and beyond, and reasonable adjustments are available to any candidates who need them. We’re also open to working flexibly and are happy to discuss flexible working options.

Managing your data
We care about your personal data. The General Data Protection Regulation provides you with more control and by submitting an application to us; we consider this an agreement to process your personal data in support of our recruitment and selection process. Data categories that we process in relation to your application are the ones that you provided as part of the application process. We process your personal data in relation to the application, in accordance with the legal requirements. Recipients of your personal data within our company are the managers of the specialist unit in charge of filling the position and the responsible colleagues from HR. Your application data is held within our secure application tracking system called Taleo – you will be given access to a candidate zone in the system where you can monitor and manage your application and see status updates. We will communicate with you, by email or phone throughout the recruitment process so that we can keep you updated and inform you of your progress through the recruitment process. You can also seek ‘job alerts’ once you are registered in Taleo and it’s possible your details may be returned in searches we conduct for new positions and we may contact you by email to let you know about them. We limit the storage of your data to the necessary period. Contact us as careers@mercedes-benz.com for further information. If you have any questions about any matter relating to data protection or the personal data that we process about you for the purpose of personnel recruiting, please contact the Chief Officer of Corporate Data Protection for the Mercedes-Benz Group AG at the following address: Mercedes-Benz Group AG, HPC E600, 70546 Stuttgart, data.protection@mercedes-benz.com.