Risk Management and Business Strategy for Lenders.
Solution and Focus Areas
Credit Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Management
Asset Classes
- Credit Card and Unsecured Loans
- Consumer Secured Loans
- Mortgage and Home Equity
- Small Business Scored Credit
- Commercial Real Estate
Account Life Cycle Phase
- Originations and Automated Decisioning Strategy
- Portfolio Management and Review
- Risk Rating Methodology
- Risk Modeling and Forecasting
PD/LGD/EAD Solution Design
- Portfolio Stress Testing
- Risk-Based Pricing
- Portfolio Reporting and Monitoring
- Cash Flow Underwriting
Risk Governance and Oversight
- Credit Policy and Lending Administration
- Second-Line Credit Review
- Governance Design
- QC Testing Design
Enterprise Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Management
Enterprise Risk Policy
Operational Risk Frameworks
Risk Taxonomies
Risk Control Self- Assessment
Risk Heatmapping and Reporting
Risk Appetite Statement Facilitation Development
Risk Training for Boards of Directors
Fraud Strategy
Enterprise Risk Management
Fraud Strategy
Fraud Governance and Organization Design
Fraud Tool Strategy
Fraud Rules with Credit Origination Strategy
Fraud Risk Assessment
Engagements
Credit Risk Strategy Formulation
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing
Credit Risk Strategy Formulation
Whether a lender is a monoline credit issuer or managing a diversified portfolio across asset classes, it's critical to ensure that their credit strategy balances portfolio growth with asset quality and aligns to the financial institution’s credit risk appetite can't be overstated in the credit environment.
Tim has served as Chief Credit Officer over a diversified $13B credit portfolio yielding top-quartile credit quality. He's built comprehensive credit risk strategies from the ground up that feature specific, actionable guidance on underwriting and servicing considerations, portfolio diversification strategies and asset concentration limits, robust stress testing to understand portfolio performance under various economic environments, and product-level strategies that achieve those results
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing
Loss Forecasting and Stress Testing Tim has led the development of loss forecasting modeling systems and dynamic stress scenario simulation frameworks that can be adapted and used for a variety of portfolio management and PD/LGD/EAD modeling frameworks for various applications of forecasting, including capital planning, stress testing, and life-of-loan loss forecasting for CECL methodologies.
Automated Underwriting and Decision Management Systems
Automated Underwriting and Decision Management Systems
Automated Underwriting and Decision Management Systems
Automated Underwriting Systems are one of the most critical control points for any financial institution in balancing responsible growth with safety and soundness. They serve as the front door of a credit portfolio, and their design, calibration, and monitoring are foundational to any high-performing loan portfolio. When they're configured and fine-tuned, they become a true differentiating factor- not just in creating a great onboarding experience for a borrower, but also in ensuring quality assets are entering the lender's portfolio. Effective design of these systems synchronizes the three core elements decision management: 1). Predictive and stable risk models; 2.) Business rules that work in concert with those risk models, not as antagonists; and 3.) Flexible, adaptive technology that can dynamically retrieve, interpret, and maximize the value of information in the application of rules and models.
Tim has extensive experience in all three of these domains: 1.) Building predictive models; 2.) Developing complementary business rule sets that enhance a model's risk assessments, rather than choking off its predictive strength; and 3.) Selection and configuration of decision system technologies that streamline the execution of business logic and support robust strategy monitoring.
Second-line Independent Credit Review
Automated Underwriting and Decision Management Systems
Automated Underwriting and Decision Management Systems
Second-line Independent Credit Review For a financial institution that requires independent oversight and credible challenge on current credit origination and servicing practices or perhaps is launching a new credit product and needs a qualified independent review of credit strategy, underwriting procedures, risk controls, and governance elements. In these situations, an independent credit review engagement can achieve those objectives.
Tim previously led the Corporate Credit Review function at Washington Mutual Bank, and built independent oversight programs across a variety of asset classes. These programs included specific elements such as pre-and-post fund testing, commercial risk rating methodologies and execution, and targeted review of asset classes and control functions. These engagements can typically be completed in the course of 2-4 weeks, provide valuable independent perspective on the execution of credit strategy, and serve a critical governance function.
About Me
Tim Bates
Principal, Efficient Frontier Risk Strategies
Tim Bates is the Principal and Founder of Efficient Frontier Risk Strategies, bringing to clients over 25 years of diverse leadership experience in Risk Management within US financial institutions. Tim previously served as Chief Credit Officer at BECU, the fourth-largest US credit union, with executive credit responsibility over a diversified $13 billion loan portfolio. He has held senior-level roles in Credit Risk, Enterprise Risk Management, and Fraud Strategy at major banks and credit unions, as well as leading predictive modeling and analytic consulting teams supporting the Financial Services industry.
Tim holds a BA in Economics from the University of Alabama, and an MBA in Finance from the University of South Carolina.
My Story
If you're lucky enough in your career, you'll get to work in a field that you love and you find intellectually fascinating. I'm that guy.
I've always had a fascination with building decision systems that predicted things. You know the kid in Little League that could calculate their batting average running to first base? That was me. For my 12th birthday, my parents gave me a baseball simulation game called APBA- in the game, every player in baseball had their own card with numbers corresponding to rolling two dice. To play you rolled the dice, looked up the number you on the player's card, which corresponded to an outcome (e.g. they made an out, hit a home run or a single, etc.) I didn't know the game was a big Monte Carlo simulation, and it didn't matter; to me, it was just fascinating that over the course of a season Pete Rose had a batting average that was almost identical to his real-life average. When I went to college, I became an Economics major at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). Economics was fascinating to me because it was about the studying the decisions that people make in the face of scarcity. (For what it's worth, I named my company Efficient Frontier Risk Strategies as a tribute to one of my favorite economists, Vilfredo Pareto.)
When I was looking for my first real job out of college, I responded to a want ad for a role with a Risk Analyst at a credit card bank. I was called for an interview, during which it was explained that the job was to run something called a credit scoring system. It was a system that gave points and deducted points for certain factors, and a score was calculated that would determine if the application was approved. I wound up getting the job, and the rest is history. I've spent nearly 30 years working in a field that I love.
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Efficient Frontier Risk Strategies
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