Program Manager – Digital Lending Blue First Consulting

The Corporate Institute; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Oolka is seeking a Program Manager – Digital Lending to drive strategic initiatives across the lending lifecycle, coordinating with lenders, risk, product, and engineering teams. The role emphasizes end-to-end program management, data-driven decision making, and scalable process building.

You will own initiatives to improve funnel metrics, reduce TAT, and ensure successful delivery with measurable outcomes while operating in a fast-paced fintech environment.

Qualifications

• 4-6 years of experience in program management or related roles.
• Deep experience in digital lending and lending ecosystems.
• End-to-end lending lifecycle knowledge: application to disbursal.
• Experience with banks/NBFCs or digital lending partners.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; advanced Excel mandatory.

Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end digital lending programs from planning to execution.
• Manage the lending funnel from application to disbursal.
• Improve approval/conversion rates and reduce TAT.
• Coordinate with lenders, risk, product, and engineering teams.
• Track lending metrics and build structured reporting.
• Identify bottlenecks and automate processes for scalability.

Skills

Program management

Digital lending

Analytical thinking

Excel

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Role: Program Manager – Digital Lending

Location: Bangalore (5 days, work from office)

Experience: 4-6 years

About the Role:

We are looking for a high-ownership Program Manager – Digital Lending to drive strategic and execution-focused programs across its digital lending business.

The role will own and coordinate initiatives across the end-to-end digital lending lifecycle – customer acquisition/application, credit assessment, lender allocation, approval, offer generation, documentation, and disbursal.

You will work closely with lending partners, credit/risk, product, engineering, business, operations, and customer experience teams to identify bottlenecks, improve lending funnel metrics, launch new initiatives, and build scalable lending processes.

This is a highly cross-functional role requiring a combination of program management, lending domain knowledge, analytical problem-solving, and strong execution capabilities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own and drive key digital lending programs and initiatives from planning through execution and measurable business outcomes.
• Manage the end-to-end lending funnel, from customer application and credit evaluation through lender approval and final disbursal.
• Identify bottlenecks across the lending journey and drive initiatives to improve approval rates, conversion rates, disbursal rates, and turnaround time (TAT).
• Work closely with lending partners to improve credit decisioning, lender allocation, approval rates, operational processes, and disbursal efficiency.
• Coordinate with product and engineering teams to implement lending workflows, lender integrations, process improvements, and automation initiatives.
• Work with credit/risk teams to understand rejection patterns, approval criteria, policy changes, and opportunities to improve portfolio and funnel performance.
• Track critical lending metrics and build structured reporting around applications, approvals, rejections, conversions, disbursals, lender performance, and TATs.
• Manage lender capacities, allocation logic, approval queues, operational escalations, and partner dependencies.
• Design and execute experiments around lender routing, customer nudges, calling campaigns, funnel interventions, and process changes.
• Identify root causes behind funnel drop-offs and coordinate corrective actions across internal and external stakeholders.
• Drive new lending initiatives, partner launches, process changes, and product enhancements through structured program management.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual processes and improve operational scalability.
• Establish clear project plans, timelines, ownership, dependencies, and success metrics for key lending initiatives.
• Proactively identify execution risks and ensure issues are resolved before they impact customers or business targets.
• Build scalable processes and operating mechanisms to support the continued growth of Oolka's digital lending business.

What Success Looks Like:

You will be successful in this role if you are able to:

• Consistently improve approval and disbursal conversion rates.
• Reduce lender and overall lending journey TAT.
• Successfully execute complex cross-functional lending programs.
• Identify funnel and operational issues using data and drive them to resolution.
• Improve coordination between lenders, credit, product, engineering, operations, and business teams.
• Ensure critical lending initiatives are delivered on time with clearly measurable outcomes.
• Help the business consistently achieve its lending and disbursal targets.
• Build scalable processes that support significant growth without proportional increases in operational complexity.

What We’re Looking For:

We are looking for someone with:

• 4-6 years of overall experience, preferably across Program Management, Business Operations, Lending Operations, Product Operations, or similar roles.
• Strong experience in digital lending, consumer lending, loan marketplaces, embedded lending, fintech, NBFCs, or lending technology platforms.
• Strong understanding of the digital lending lifecycle, including application, underwriting/credit decisioning, approval, lender allocation, documentation, and disbursal.
• Experience working with banks, NBFCs, lending partners, or digital lending platforms.
• Experience managing cross-functional programs involving business, product, technology, credit/risk, and operations teams.
• Strong analytical and structured problem-solving capabilities.
• Ability to analyse lending funnel data, identify root causes, and translate insights into actionable programs.
• Advanced Excel skills are mandatory.
• Strong project/program management skills with the ability to manage multiple initiatives, dependencies, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• High ownership and the ability to drive ambiguous business problems from identification through resolution.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth startup environment.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

The ideal candidate would be someone who combines digital lending domain expertise with strong program management and analytical capabilities.

You should be comfortable working with lending data, managing lender relationships and dependencies, analysing funnel performance, coordinating with product and engineering teams, and driving complex initiatives involving multiple stakeholders.

You should be someone who does not simply track programs but actively identifies problems, structures solutions, drives execution, and owns the final business outcome.

Experience working in a digital lending fintech, NBFC, lending marketplace, embedded finance platform, or consumer credit business would be highly relevant.

Why Consider Us:

• Opportunity to work with a fast-growing AI-powered fintech company.
• High ownership and direct visibility with senior leadership.
• Opportunity to drive and scale digital lending programs with measurable business impact.
• Work closely with leading banks, NBFCs, and lending partners.
• Exposure across product, technology, credit/risk, operations, customer experience, and business.
• Opportunity to solve complex problems across a large-scale consumer lending platform.
• Significant scope to build processes and programs rather than simply manage established operations.
• Fast-paced environment offering significant learning and career-growth opportunities.
• Opportunity to work at the intersection of AI, credit, digital lending, and financial management.