Concise Loan Reviews Win Points with Executives

Bank executives are too busy to read lengthy loan reviews. One company has tailored its approach for maximum effectiveness and high readability.

CREDIT RISK SOLUTIONS, LLC
117 Dawn River Way
Folsom, CA 95630

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:    June 25, 2003
CONTACT: Ken Wall, Credit Risk Solutions, 916-989-1730

Concise Loan Reviews Win Points with Executives

Folsom, Calif. -- Busy bank executives are discovering that independent loan reviews can be targeted not only to their banks but also to the economic environments in which they operate.

Credit Risk Solutions LLC, a loan review partnership launched in 1998 by banking veteran Paul Hurd and former bank examiner Ken Wall, takes the best of traditional loan analyses and combines it with a portfolio shock test based on current and future economic trends in the bank's community to provide a unique perspective on a bank's credit quality. The resulting report is a concise, readable document geared toward senior management and directors.

"They're not hung up on minutae," says Tim Leveque, executive vice president at Pacific Coast Bankers Bank in San Francisco. "They understand the credits of a community bank."

Executive Vice President Dennis Hurst of Union Safe Deposit Bank in Stockton, Calif. appreciates the way Credit Risk Solutions puts its findings in context. "There's no major on the minors," he says. "Every piece of information they provide can be put in terms of the larger question that matters most: what does this mean in terms of risk management?"

"We know that bankers have enough to read without adding to that burden," says Ken Wall, managing director of Credit Risk Solutions. "We write up loans in our report only if they're problematic, rather than explain our methodology on every loan reviewed." Business partner Paul Hurd adds that the big picture is crucial. "The stress test we conduct on a bank's portfolio has proven to be an effective way to determine it's resiliency in the face of a changing economy."

With the company's focus on the sub markets of Northern California, it understands the unique economies at work there. According to Mary Leonard Wilson, executive vice president of National Bank of the Redwoods in Santa Rosa, Calif., Credit Risk Solutions "takes the time to research underlying local market conditions and why our experience with a certain industry concentration might be different from the overall market or even other banks."
###