2014 Community banking best practices: Define your institution’s credit culture

Last week’s post that continued the 2014 community bank best practices series discussed the importance of mapping out your most common processes to increase consistency in the loan review process.

This final post of the 2014 Community banking best practice series will explore the reasons why you should define your institution’s credit culture.

In this clip from a recent Sageworks webinar, 2014 Outlook for Community Banks, Ancin Cooley, principal of Synergy Bank Consulting, explains why this is such an important issue this year.

Some of the key questions Cooley raised to bankers in the video were:

• Who are you?

• What defines you in terms of policy and procedures?

• What type of loans do you make?

• Does everybody understand what your institution’s credit culture is?

In a recent article, Cooley also goes on to explain four key components that help cultivate an effective credit culture, including leadership, communication, training and rewards/metrics.

To learn more about why defining your institution’s credit culture is so important this year, view the entire webinar on the 2014 Outlook for Community Banks.

Once you defined your credit culture, download the whitepaper Enhancing Credit Quality to learn how your policies and procedures should reflect sound underwriting standards.