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GLOSSARYTERMS AS A CREDIT DESK USES THEM

Material non-public information

What is material non-public information, and what may a banker do with it?

ONE OF 80 TERMS · FREE · NO SIGNUP

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Material non-public information is information about a company that has not been released to the market and that an investor would consider significant — a result, a breach, a takeover, a lender's decision to pull a facility. Lending puts bankers in possession of it constantly, which is why the rules are strict: it may be used only for the purpose it was given, not traded on, not passed on, and not hinted at. The duty extends to tips a banker merely receives, and the usual remedy for being told something is not to act on it but to report that it was told.

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.

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