Chief Financial Officer, Digital Credit Partnerships — Employer and Lender Economics

The mandate

A digital services company supports earned-wage access and short-term credit propositions through employer and regulated-lender partnerships. Its commercial agreements differ in who pays, when fees are earned and which party carries particular obligations. The CFO will take executive finance ownership of the platform company, making those differences visible in accounts, forecasts and investment choices. High transaction activity is not sufficient evidence of a sound business model if the platform's financial rights are narrower than its operational support commitments or depend on customer behaviour that has not yet been demonstrated.

Open-ended permanent employment supports an initial eighteen-month agenda to establish partnership-level economics, investor evidence and reliable finance operations. Nineteen professionals report within the function, working from a Mumbai hybrid base with planned partner reviews. The platform provides services within its permitted model; regulated lenders retain credit and loan responsibilities. Compliance and legal owners determine the actual classification and obligations of each arrangement. Finance must reflect their conclusions accurately rather than treating all amounts moving through partner systems as company revenue or capital available to support expansion.

The CFO owns planning, approved operating cash priorities and finance approval of partnership exceptions within delegation. New equity, material contractual commitments and changes affecting regulated activity require board and specialist approval. Product leaders retain proposition design and technology execution. The CFO should nevertheless challenge the economics of an employer rollout or lender integration before costs become embedded, including implementation effort, support demand, fee conditions and any exposure whose allocation remains unresolved in the proposed agreement.

The lasting scope includes reporting, fundraising information and financial stewardship of the platform company. It excludes loan underwriting, regulatory interpretation and directing partners' collections. Directors expect a defensible account of earned income, repeatable contribution and funding requirements. Finance should recognise when an attractive partnership deserves a bounded test rather than a full rollout, and when an apparent loss is an intentional, authorised capability investment. Neither a convenient gross-volume metric nor an unexplained accounting adjustment should substitute for a clear view of the company's own rights, costs and obligations.

What you will own

• Establish a partnership financial-rights register with legal and compliance owners, connecting permitted services, fee conditions and company obligations to finance treatment without assuming every partner agreement follows the same economic structure.
• Govern employer and lender contribution views that separate platform earnings from loan flows, implementation effort and ongoing support, reconciling management analysis to reliable accounts before a rollout is judged commercially successful.
• Decide approved operating cash priorities and recommend rollout funding through the authorised route, comparing a full partnership commitment with a bounded test when customer behaviour or fee realisation remains uncertain.
• Lead financial challenge of product and integration plans, requiring named owners for cost and obligation assumptions while leaving customer proposition, underwriting and technology design with their qualified decision-makers.
• Prepare investor information that distinguishes transaction activity, earned revenue and available corporate cash, making unresolved contractual or regulatory inputs visible instead of presenting a single growth measure as proof of economic strength.
• Monitor partnership variance through repeat use, fee conditions and support burden, recommending finance responses when operational adoption increases but the platform's verified contribution fails to develop as planned.
• Develop finance leaders capable of discussing sensitive partner economics constructively, sustaining confidential evidence and identifying when a new arrangement needs authoritative specialist review before its assumptions enter the operating forecast.

Candidate qualifications

• Bring at least twenty-eight years of experience including senior financial leadership in an NBFC, regulated services, fintech or a relevant digital-partnership setting. Demonstrate CFO or equivalent company-level responsibility at a credible scale. Show a partnership decision you changed after clarifying financial rights or obligations, identifying your own executive contribution and the approval route rather than relying on growth reported by the wider partner network.
• Have strong accounting, corporate-finance and planning competence supported by appropriate preparation or established senior practice. Explain how you separated platform income from funds or activity belonging to another party, with reliable reconciliations and qualified policy review. The role requires financial integrity across different commercial structures; generic technology enthusiasm does not replace evidence of accounts, contractual economics and controlled company-level decisions.
• Have worked with product, bank, employer or lender partners when responsibilities were disputed or incomplete. Describe the specialist conclusion you needed and how it affected a finance recommendation. You must understand that the classification of an earned-wage or credit proposition requires authoritative review, while finance remains responsible for reflecting the resulting rights, costs and commitments accurately in budgets and investor communication.
• Have led professionals through partnership growth and executive funding reviews, developing a finance function that can challenge activity-based success claims. Evidence should include a rollout you staged, a cost assumption you corrected or a funding case you narrowed. Confidentiality, conflict discipline and clear delegation are essential. The CFO must accept financial leadership without claiming authority over a partner's underwriting, customer collections or regulated decision perimeter.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 14 October 2026. Mandate reference CVU-PER-2026-IND-247.