SME Banking 3.0 - Credit analysis skills for the SME Banker

SME Banking 3.0 is focused on helping the bankers involved with SME borrowers. This includes both line bankers at the customer relationship level and credit specialists overseeing lending decisions. As well, specialists in marketing, sales, product development and training who are involved in a bank’s SME service line can better understand. SME Banking 3.0 systematically develops staff skills to evaluate both qualitative and quantitative factors and assess the creditworthiness of a small business borrower which is typically unable to provide much in the way of either formal financial reporting information or tangible collateral security. Lenders must find creative ways to detect debt service capacity all the while screening out unsavory risks. This two-day course is taught by a seasoned industry practitioner in a highly inter-active setting that includes exercises, case studies and group discussions with your peers.

•    Overview of the logic of credit: rational thinking decision frameworks
•    Learning to use both hard and soft information in credit judgment
•    Reviewing analytical skills in the interpretation of financial statement results
•    Reconstructing financial pictures from proxy information
•    Grasping fundamental drivers of success and risk in various industry sectors
•    Assessing management capabilities and judging their commercial “street smarts”
•    Quantifying debt service capacity from cash flow generation
•    Understanding where the borrower is coming from: financial management principles
•    Structuring: Working capital revolvers & capital expenditure term loans
•    Honing communication skills to articulate a lending rational in credit write-ups

In the spirit of an inter-active workshop, the instructor will encourage the sharing of ideas by participants who are expected to bring their own contributions to the sessions.

Key Learning Objectives
•    Appreciate how business reality is reflected and not reflected in financial reports
•    Identify a business’s KSF – key survival factors – that SMEs must be focused on
•    Construct sources of financial information using proxy information
•    Assess the skills and capabilities of small business managers/owners
•    Interpret the real meaning of financial statement figures
•    Forecast debt service capacity to gauge how much debt a business can prudently carry
•    Find alternatives to collateral security that is less available from small business borrowers
•    Integrate financial and non-financial risk factors
•    Take control of your lending destiny by “hands-on” monitoring and control measures
•    Build SME portfolio volumes through consultative selling
•    Craft a credible case for lending money to a business enterprise