Credit committee
What does a bank's credit committee do?
ONE OF 180 TERMS · FREE · NO SIGNUP
BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED
// THE SHORT ANSWER
A credit committee is the group of senior credit officers that approves the exposures too large, too complex or too far outside policy for any one person's delegated authority. It reads the credit paper rather than the relationship — the recommendation, the risks the analyst has named and the mitigants offered — and it can approve, decline, or approve on different terms. Most commercial lending never reaches committee, and the papers that do are written to survive questions from people who have never met the client.
BASIS Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.
// WORKED IN
// NEXT TO IT
// SUBSCRIBE
The Lab.
One case file and one question, in your inbox every Tuesday morning, New Zealand time. The senior banker's read opens only after you answer.
FREE WITH IT · THREE PDFS
An interview case, an annotated credit paper, and a one-page loan application sheet.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Educational content only.