The global financial crisis has multiple causes and many proposed cures. Within mortgage lending, one key cause of the crisis was inadequate credit-risk-assessment policies, procedures and technology. Today, the credit-policy pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, with the cures including complete loan documentation, higher credit-score cutoffs, reduced mortgage product options and tighter property appraisal guidelines for everyone on every loan. But these cures are also causing new problems. This Tower on Tech column will briefly assess the impact of the credit crisis on banks' consumer-lending practices, with a focus on credit-data management, reporting and credit scoring.
