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THE IN-TRAY160 FILES · 2 SHELVES · FREE

The In-Tray.

Two shelves of one-minute files. Every call is read against a senior banker's — not right or wrong, but how far from the senior read.

ONE MINUTE A FILE · NO SIGNUP

HOW IT READS A CALL

Each file is a few lines and four possible calls. Make one, and every option opens with how far it sits from the senior banker’s read — and a short note on why, naming the chapter of How Bankers Think it comes from.

There is no right answer printed anywhere. Most of these files have more than one defensible call; what differs is how close each comes to the one a senior banker would make.

  • WITH THE SENIOR READ
  • STANDS UP
  • OFF THE LINE

FIVE KINDS OF FILE

  • THE CALL
    A situation and four moves. Which one would a senior make?
  • THE FIRST QUESTION
    A few numbers on the page. Which do you ask about first?
  • WHAT THEY HEAR
    Something said across the table. What does the other side hear?
  • SIGNAL OR NOISE
    Something changed in a borrower’s file. Does it mean anything?
  • THE NUMBER
    A sum to work out from the file. The read shows the working.

THIS WEEK’S FOUR

Four files from four chapters, to read here. They change each week.

THE FIRST QUESTION · CHAPTER 4

A manufacturer applies to renew its facilities.

Net profit
US$5.0m
Operating cash flow
US$4.8m
Inventory days
70 → 72
Receivable days
45 → 44

Is there anything to chase?

SIGNAL OR NOISE · CHAPTER 6

A borrower who has paid on time for nine years asks to move its monthly management accounts to quarterly.

Signal or noise?

WHAT THEY HEAR · CHAPTER 8

A borrower says: 'You keep asking for management accounts. My business is in my head and on the phone with my suppliers.'

What do you hear?

WHAT THEY HEAR · CHAPTER 2

The panel asks a candidate to walk them through a company. The candidate begins: 'It was founded in 1987, and in 1995 it moved into...'

What does the panel hear?

4 FILES · PICK A CALL ON ANY OF THEM

THE EIGHT TRAYS

THE SECOND SHELF · THE GROUNDWORK

Every commercial loan answers five questions: who borrows, what is lent, who lends, in what conditions, and by what rules. Each is a tray here, cut into four or five squares, with nothing left out and nothing counted twice.

THE WHOLE MAP →

WHAT IT IS NOT

Not a test with a pass mark, a level or a ranking. The placement ends in a card of eight rows, one per chapter, showing where your calls sat against the senior read. Nothing on it goes up a scale.

Not the book, either. A note under each file names the chapter it comes from; how that chapter works is in the chapter.

FROM THE BOOK

Every file here is hung on one of the eight chapters of How Bankers Think, and on the framework that chapter names. The eight frameworks →