How Bank Loan Officers Evaluate Persons Applying for Credit

It is evident that, in many countries, banking is in the process of significant structural change. Deregulation in the 1980s has led to increased competition among banks. By mimetic strategic behaviour banks have tried to expand credit volume. Among other factors, a lack of controls, perverse incentives and a changing internal bank culture have led to a severe crisis in Nordic banking systems. Reports a study of how this banking behaviour came about, conducted in a large Swedish bank in jeopardy. Several loan‐granting processes were studied by generating unrestricted verbal material from participant bank officers. By abstracting qualitative aspects (variables) from these materials,different underlying evaluative structures were elicited depending on which persons were being evaluated. Based on the evidence found,forwards suggestions to improve the personality assessments of loan decision officers.