The credit skills of Business Bankers generally vary greatly, depending on their backgrounds and professional experiences within the financial industries community. The objective of this Learning Path is to provide Business Bankers with the appropriate credit skills for identifying lending opportunities and loan requests that qualify for further in-depth credit analysis by professionals within the organization in reaching a credit and lending decision.
This Learning Path applies to Business Bankers with limited or inactive credit skills and not to those with more highly developed and active credit skills.
- Courses: 22
- Member Connections: 20
- Non-Member Price: $5,000
Accounting is indeed the language of business. A working knowledge of accounting is essential to any professional attempting to quickly and accurately assess the credit worthiness of a potential or existing business borrower based on a brief review of accrual financial statements or federal tax returns. Consequently Step 1 in this Learning Path is the four session Credit College Course on Accounting Essentials .
The Credit College Course on Credit Basics in Step 2 addresses both soft and hard data in reaching a conclusion about a potential or existing lending relationship. The soft data issues focus on personal qualities for business success as well as the essential role of creating and maintaining competitive advantages in establishing business success. The hard data issues range from a focused assessment of key financial performance ratios for a commercial business and the use and benefits of a cash flow statement, rather than use of a cash flow proxy, in identifying a borrower's likely cash source of debt service.
The commercial real estate Quick Hits in Step 3 provide brief and focused review of key commercial real estate credit issues that are pursued in more detail in the single topic Webinar on Commercial Real Estate in Step 4.
The other Step 4 single topic Webinar on Tax Returns vs. Accrual Statements in Assessing Borrower Risk provides more in-depth examination of the differences between the use of cash flow proxies and the Uniform Credit Analysis (UCA) cash flow statement in identifying:
- The borrowing causes.
- The cash sources of debt service.
- The financing requirement.
- The sources of cash to meet the financial requirement.
Resolution of these issues is essential in the credit assessment process.
Step 5, which includes the first four of eight sessions in the Credit College Course on Using Federal Tax Returns for Ratio and Cash Flow Analysis, provides Business Bankers with essential knowledge of the information content of business and personal income tax returns as well as identifies the cash and non-cash revenue and expense amounts that appear on federal tax returns.
Step 6 in the Learning Path offers single topic Webinars in the specialty lending fields of contractors, medical practices, and not for profit organizations, assuming a working knowledge of these business sectors and organizations fit within the target market for a Business Banker. Note, too, that Business Bankers could also access and participate in specialty lending Webinars for hospitals and municipalities, if these specialty lending fields were of interest.
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Testing / Certification |
Every Quick Hit and Webinar includes an online, multiple choice review quiz. Every session in a Credit College Series includes an online, multiple choice review quiz. Every Credit College Series includes an online, multiple choice progress check or final exam.
The online tests are optional. However, we strongly encourage participants to take advantage of these critical mechanisms for reinforcing the key points addressed and explained in every Quick Hit, Webinar, Credit College Session, and Credit College Series.