Mortgage Review Officer - Real Estate Secured Lending (RESL)

Is this role right for you?

In this role you will:

Ensure adherence to policy and procedural standards for mortgages approved for funding:

• Review mortgage files prior to funding to ensure retail lending compliance.
• Conduct specific reviews of mortgages from time to time, as requested by the senior manager, Credit Review, to assess an underwriter's performance and/or quality of deals.
• Effect quality control to ensure established standards are adhered to, taking full responsibility for the correctness and approval of mortgage documentation.
• Use judgment to determine if there are any unidentified or unaddressed out-of-policy issues contained in the Mortgage file; and if so, determine whether these issues pose a material or non-material risk and how to proceed.
• Deficiencies - escalate Pre-Funding Exceptions (PFEs) for material risks directly to one or all the following: the Manager, Credit Review, senior Manager, Credit Review, or Director, Mortgage Security. Non-material deficiencies or administrative data integrity issues are communicated through PEGA directly to the underwriter / FA, as applicable.
• Check and authorize transactions within defined authorities.
• Prepare/contribute to regular monthly reports of mortgages reviewed from the previous month, reporting on scope, methodology, findings, risk, recommendations, and overall conclusions and presenting findings to be reviewed by the Manager, Credit Review, Senior Manager, and the Director of Mortgage Security.
• Maintain an excellent and up-to-date knowledge of policies concerning mortgages, authorization limits, and escalation processes.
• Provide additional support for the Senior Manager by conducting credit reviews on mortgage files of interest and providing detailed reporting on creditworthiness along with any identifiable trends.

Ensure consistent, quality solutions mortgage loan applications are processed:

• Review and report on the consistency of decisions and loan conditioning-including the consistency of risk tolerances across adjudicators, teams, and units.
• Review and report on the quality of adjudication, adherence to policy and appropriateness of exception decisions.
• Reviewing credit decisions to ensure adjudicators provide sound advice and potential alternatives to deal with structure within risk parameters.
• Document findings and provide them to senior leadership for use in coaching sessions and for documenting and assessing performance.
• Review samples of similar requests to ensure consistency between adjudicators and documents.
• Make sound decisions and judgments, when necessary, determine the reasonability of the deal based on the specifics of the file and customer situation, and clearly document your decision.

Ensure delivery of customer service is in accordance with Scotia Service standards:

• Provide straightforward explanations of findings from file reviews to the Manager Credit Review, Senior Manager and Director of Mortgage Security in a respectful and constructive manner.
• Recognize opportunities to improve personal competencies and implement action steps to enhance those competencies, including attendance at both internal and external courses.

Contribute to the effective management of the Bank’s mortgage credit portfolio:

• Ensure accurate trending and tracking of performance metrics
• Keep abreast of changes to policy/processes as they relate to third-party mortgage originations and lending.
• Display and maintain a thorough and knowledgeable perspective of Real Estate Secured Lending products, policies, processes and related systems.
• Effectively and efficiently analyze application information and associated documentation to assess the reliability/replication of adjudicated condition fulfilment and ensure they are in line with the Bank and risk management policy and tolerances.
• Identify and escalate any potential issues (i.e. potential fraud, legislative requirements).
• Identify staff training opportunities, potential skill gaps, and system issues to support and improve processes.

Do you have the skills that will enable you to succeed in this role? We'd love to work with you if you have:

• Expert understanding of retail lending policies specific to retail mortgages/STEP and their associated procedures.
• Thorough knowledge of the bank’s regulatory and compliance requirements relate to credit granting, privacy, knowing your customer, and anti-money laundering, including management control and audit disciplines.
• Working knowledge of SMA/HFA/Branch processes/procedures with respect to mortgage adjudication and condition fulfillment.
• Expert knowledge of CMHC, Sagen, and Canada Guaranty mortgage insurance.
• Working knowledge of PC skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).
• Thorough knowledge of MIMs, Scotia home, CIS and other related Bank systems.
• Previous experience in adjudicating retail loans, mortgages and small business credit is required.
• Proven strong communication and interpersonal skills, both verbal and written, are required for effective collaboration with team members and external Bank departments.

Educational Requirements:

• Economics or Business-related degree or college diploma and 2 to 4 years of industry-related experience.
• Experience with third-party mortgage origination and lending with a sound knowledge of the Bank’s products and policies combined with a good understanding of the Bank’s credit culture.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills are necessary for professional interactions with business unit sales officers and to ensure a high level of credibility with serviced units.
• Able to function independently and accept direction on reviews from senior leadership when your decisions are disputed.
• You are a curious, strategic, reasonable, problem-solver, and driven individual who can contribute to the bank’s overall success.

Pursuant to a language needs assessment conducted by Scotiabank, the successful candidate will be required to be able to communicate in English in addition to French because they will be required to work closely with other groups from head office who operate primarily in English and they will serve and English-speaking clientele.