Credit analysis

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Credit analysis is the method by which one calculates the creditworthiness of a business or organization. [1] In other words, It is the evaluation of the ability of a company to honor its financial obligations. The audited financial statements of a large company might be analyzed when it issues or has issued bonds. Or, a bank may analyze the financial statements of a small business before making or renewing a commercial loan. The term refers to either case, whether the business is large or small. A credit analyst is the finance professional undertaking this role.

Contents

Role

One objective of credit analysis is to look at both the borrower and the lending facility being proposed and to assign a risk rating. The risk rating is derived by estimating the probability of default by the borrower at a given confidence level over the life of the facility, and by estimating the amount of loss that the lender would suffer in the event of default.

Credit analysis involves a wide variety of financial analysis techniques, including ratio and trend analysis as well as the creation of projections and a detailed analysis of cash flows. Credit analysis also includes an examination of collateral and other sources of repayment as well as credit history and management ability. As mentioned, analysts attempt to predict the probability that a borrower will default on its debts, and also the severity of losses in the event of default. The credit spread is the difference in interest rates between theoretically "risk-free" investments such as U.S. treasuries or LIBOR and investments that carry some risk of default—reflect credit analysis by financial market participants.

Before approving a commercial loan, a bank will look at all of these factors with the primary emphasis being the cash flow of the borrower. A typical measurement of repayment ability is the debt service coverage ratio or DSCR. A credit analyst at a bank will measure the cash generated by a business (before interest expense and excluding depreciation and any other non-cash or extraordinary expenses). The DSCR divides this cash flow amount by the debt service (both principal and interest payments on all loans) that will be required to be met. Commercial bankers prefer a DSCR of at least 120 percent. In other words, the debt service coverage ratio should be 1.2 or higher to show that an extra cushion exists and that the business can afford its debt requirements.

Classic credit analysis

Traditionally most banks have relied on subjective judgment to assess the credit risk of a corporate borrower. [2] Essentially, bankers used information on various borrower characteristics – such as character (reputation), capital (leverage), capacity to pay (volatility of earnings), conditions of the customer's business (purpose of the loan), and collateral – in deciding whether or not to make a given loan. These characteristics are commonly referred to as the 5 Cs. [3] Developing this type of expert system is time-consuming and expensive. Incorporating certain soft (qualitative) data in a risk model is particularly demanding, however successful implementation eliminates human error and reduces potential for misuse. That is why, from time to time, banks have tried to clone their decision-making process. Even so, in the granting of credit to corporate customers, many banks continue to rely primarily on their traditional expert system for evaluating potential borrowers.

Credit scoring systems

In recent decades, a number of objective, quantitative systems for scoring credits have been developed. In univariate (one variable) accounting-based credit-scoring systems, the credit analyst compares various key accounting ratios of potential borrowers with industry or group norms and trends in these variables.

Today, Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Risk Management Association can all provide banks with industry ratios. The univariate approach enables an analyst starting an inquiry to determine whether a particular ratio for a potential borrower differs markedly from the norm for its industry. In reality, however, the unsatisfactory level of one ratio is frequently mitigated by the strength of some other measure. A firm, for example, may have a poor profitability ratio but an above-average liquidity ratio. One limitation of the univariate approach is the difficulty of making trade-offs between such weak and strong ratios. Of course, a good credit analyst can make these adjustments. However, some univariate measures – such as the specific industry group, public versus private company, and region – are categorical rather than ratio-level values. It is more difficult to make judgments about variables of this type.

Although univariate models are still in use today in many banks, most academics and an increasing number of practitioners seem to disapprove of ratio analysis as a means of assessing the performance of a business enterprise. Many respected theorists downgrade the arbitrary rules of thumb (such as company ratio comparisons) that are widely used by practitioners and favor instead the application of more rigorous statistical techniques.

Fuzzy logic and neural networks are examples of novel methods of developing credit scoring expert systems that deliver greater accuracy in estimates of future performance of a business enterprise. Beside hard data present in traditional ratio analysis, fuzzy logic can easily incorporate linguistic terms and expert opinions which makes it more adapted to cases with insufficient and imprecise hard data, as well as for modeling risks that are not fully understood. [4]

Education and training

Typical education credentials often require a business related bachelor's degree majoring in finance, business, statistics, or accounting (to include an emphasis in finance or economics). An MBA is not required, however is increasingly being held or pursued by analysts, often to become more competitive for advancement opportunities. Commercial bankers also undergo intense credit training provided by their bank or a third-party company.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Default (finance)</span> Financial failure to meet legal conditions of a loan

In finance, default is failure to meet the legal obligations of a loan, for example when a home buyer fails to make a mortgage payment, or when a corporation or government fails to pay a bond which has reached maturity. A national or sovereign default is the failure or refusal of a government to repay its national debt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debt</span> Obligation to pay borrowed money

Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Commercial debt is generally subject to contractual terms regarding the amount and timing of repayments of principal and interest. Loans, bonds, notes, and mortgages are all types of debt. In financial accounting, debt is a type of financial transaction, as distinct from equity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loan</span> Lending of money

In finance, a loan is the transfer of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money.

Credit risk is the possibility of losing a lender holds due to a risk of default on a debt that may arise from a borrower failing to make required payments. In the first resort, the risk is that of the lender and includes lost principal and interest, disruption to cash flows, and increased collection costs. The loss may be complete or partial. In an efficient market, higher levels of credit risk will be associated with higher borrowing costs. Because of this, measures of borrowing costs such as yield spreads can be used to infer credit risk levels based on assessments by market participants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fractional-reserve banking</span> System of banking

Fractional-reserve banking is the system of banking operating in almost all countries worldwide, under which banks that take deposits from the public are required to hold a proportion of their deposit liabilities in liquid assets as a reserve, and are at liberty to lend the remainder to borrowers. Bank reserves are held as cash in the bank or as balances in the bank's account at the central bank. The country's central bank determines the minimum amount that banks must hold in liquid assets, called the "reserve requirement" or "reserve ratio". Most commercial banks hold more than this minimum amount as excess reserves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fixed income</span> Type of investment

Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the principal amount on maturity. Fixed-income securities — more commonly known as bonds — can be contrasted with equity securities – often referred to as stocks and shares – that create no obligation to pay dividends or any other form of income. Bonds carry a level of legal protections for investors that equity securities do not — in the event of a bankruptcy, bond holders would be repaid after liquidation of assets, whereas shareholders with stock often receive nothing.

A financial analyst is a professional, undertaking financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core feature of the job. The role may specifically be titled securities analyst, research analyst, equity analyst, investment analyst, or ratings analyst. The job title is a broad one: in banking, and industry more generally, various other analyst-roles cover financial management and (credit) risk management, as opposed to focusing on investments and valuation; these are also discussed in this article.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collateralized debt obligation</span> Financial product

A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Like other private label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the cash flow the CDO collects from the pool of bonds or other assets it owns. Distinctively, CDO credit risk is typically assessed based on a probability of default (PD) derived from ratings on those bonds or assets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second mortgage</span>

Second mortgages, commonly referred to as junior liens, are loans secured by a property in addition to the primary mortgage. Depending on the time at which the second mortgage is originated, the loan can be structured as either a standalone second mortgage or piggyback second mortgage. Whilst a standalone second mortgage is opened subsequent to the primary loan, those with a piggyback loan structure are originated simultaneously with the primary mortgage. With regard to the method in which funds are withdrawn, second mortgages can be arranged as home equity loans or home equity lines of credit. Home equity loans are granted for the full amount at the time of loan origination in contrast to home equity lines of credit which permit the homeowner access to a predetermined amount which is repaid during the repayment period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commercial mortgage</span> Mortgage loan secured by commercial property

A commercial mortgage is a mortgage loan secured by commercial property, such as an office building, shopping center, industrial warehouse, or apartment complex. The proceeds from a commercial mortgage are typically used to acquire, refinance, or redevelop commercial property.

The debt service coverage ratio (DSCR), known as "debt coverage ratio" (DCR), is a financial metric used to assess an entity's ability to generate enough cash to cover its debt service obligations. These obligations include interest, principal, and lease payments. The DSCR is calculated by dividing the operating income available for debt service by the total amount of debt service due.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mortgage loan</span> Loan secured using real estate

A mortgage loan or simply mortgage, in civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property through a process known as mortgage origination. This means that a legal mechanism is put into place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property to pay off the loan in the event the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word mortgage is derived from a Law French term used in Britain in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge" and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. A mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan)".

In finance, subprime lending is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subprime borrowers were defined as having FICO scores below 600, although this threshold has varied over time.

Asset and liability management is the practice of managing financial risks that arise due to mismatches between the assets and liabilities as part of an investment strategy in financial accounting.

This article provides background information regarding the subprime mortgage crisis. It discusses subprime lending, foreclosures, risk types, and mechanisms through which various entities involved were affected by the crisis.

A project finance model is a specialized financial model, the purpose of which is to assess the economic feasibility of the project in question. The model's output can also be used in structuring, or "sculpting", the project finance deal.

Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations and selling their related cash flows to third party investors as securities, which may be described as bonds, pass-through securities, or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Investors are repaid from the principal and interest cash flows collected from the underlying debt and redistributed through the capital structure of the new financing. Securities backed by mortgage receivables are called mortgage-backed securities (MBS), while those backed by other types of receivables are asset-backed securities (ABS).

A business loan is a loan specifically intended for business purposes. As with all loans, it involves the creation of a debt, which will be repaid with added interest. There are a number of different types of business loans, including bank loans, mezzanine financing, asset-based financing, invoice financing, microloans, business cash advances and cash flow loans.

Serviceability in Australian banking is the ability of a debtor to meet loan repayments. In the 1990s debt serviceability criteria had been relaxed, but nowadays it's harder to get finance. Every creditor has own serviceability model.

References

  1. ↑ "Credit Analysis". Corporate Finance Institute. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  2. ↑ "Principles for the Management of Credit Risk" (PDF).
  3. ↑ MBDA, ""
  4. ↑ Brkic, Sabina and Hodzic, Migdat and Dzanic, Enis, Fuzzy Logic Model of Soft Data Analysis for Corporate Client Credit Risk Assessment in Commercial Banking (November 29, 2017). Fifth Scientific Conference with International Participation “Economy of Integration” ICEI 2017 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3079471
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