Loan Trade Operations Associate I

Join a team that supports the accurate and timely execution of primary syndicated loan transactions. You will apply your loan operations experience, sound judgment and control mindset to strengthen trade-booking quality and help transactions progress efficiently through the syndication lifecycle.

As a Primary Syndication – Loan Trade Operations Associate in the Primary Syndications team, you will serve as the independent approver in a two-touch trade-booking process. You will review bookings prepared by trade-entry makers, validate economic and static data against approved source information, approve complete and accurate transactions, and return or escalate exceptions before downstream processing. You will also partner across the transaction lifecycle to resolve issues, support controls and improve booking quality.

Job responsibilities

- Approve trades by validating trade economics and booking attributes against approved source details, including deal, facility, lender or counterparty, direction, dates, allocation amount, price, portfolio, legal entity and required settlement details.
- Confirm booking completeness and accuracy in Loan IQ, ClearPar and other approved workflow tools before releasing transactions for downstream processing and settlement.
- Review booking, enrichment and allocation activity for new-money syndications, refinancings, repricings, cashless rolls, and other transactions completed by the Debt Capital Markets (DCM) business group.
- Investigate and resolve trade exceptions, allocation breaks, lender or account mapping issues, missing identifiers, system rejects and discrepancies across source records and booking platforms and resolve recurring or time-sensitive issues through established channels.
- Monitor urgent and aged items through completion and maintain clear, auditable evidence of review, approval, exception disposition and escalation.
- Partner with trading assistants, Syndicate, Middle Office Documentation, Operations Settlements, Loan and Agency Services, Legal, Credit, Financial Control and Technology to support transaction execution.
- Analyze completed bookings and recurring error themes, and recommend preventive controls, workflow improvements, training or procedure enhancements.
- Assist Primary Trading Assistants (SLF TAs) with regular reporting (daily/weekly/monthly) and various ad-hoc requests (e.g. lender lists, trades lists, etc.) made by internal business partners during periods of high primary loan syndication volume.

Required qualifications, capabilities and skills

- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business, Economics or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Experience in loan operations, trade support, middle office, transaction processing, settlements, agency services or another controlled financial-services operations environment.
- Experience reviewing, approving or quality-checking transactions, operational records or control evidence.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to investigate discrepancies across multiple systems and data sources.
- Ability to make accurate, risk-based decisions under time pressure and communicate corrections or escalations clearly.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook, with a strong focus on operational risk, controls and procedure adherence.

Preferred qualifications, capabilities and skills

The following additional qualifications would strengthen your ability to succeed in this role:

- Hands-on experience with Loan IQ, ClearPar, PrimaryOne or comparable loan-booking, syndication or settlement platforms.
- Working knowledge of syndicated loans and the trade lifecycle, including the ability to interpret trade tickets, allocation files and transaction instructions.
- Familiarity with Loan Syndications and Trading Association standard documentation and market conventions; familiarity with Loan Market Association conventions is beneficial for European coverage.
- Experience with maker-checker controls, exception management, reconciliations, root-cause analysis, user acceptance testing or audit support.
- Ability to analyze operational data and identify trends in booking quality, exceptions, aging or control performance.
- Developing experience using AI-powered analytics, workflow automation, or intelligent process tools to drive efficiency gains, reduce manual effort, or improve accuracy in operational processes