Lending remains the main source of income and the main source of risk for most financial institutions. Rising interest rates, uneven economic conditions and heavier supervisory scrutiny have raised the cost of poor credit decisions. Lenders that rely on collateral alone, or that stop watching a borrower after disbursement, see problem loans grow before anyone acts.

The Practical Credit Risk & Lending Training Course follows a loan through its life. It starts with the credit process, policy and risk appetite, then teaches the borrower analysis that underpins every approval: financial statement review, ratio and cash flow analysis, projections, working capital cycles and industry assessment. Participants then structure facilities, select security, apply scoring and grading, and price for risk. The final modules cover post-disbursement monitoring, classification, provisioning, restructuring and recovery, and the reporting a credit risk function provides to management.

Sessions are driven by case files and group work. Teams analyse borrower accounts, write recommendation notes, defend their grading before a mock credit committee and decide how to handle a deteriorating account. Participants leave with templates and a repeatable method that they can apply to their own portfolios.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Describe the credit process and the role of policy and risk appetite in lending decisions.
• Analyse financial statements and cash flows to judge repayment capacity.
• Assess borrower character, management quality and sector risk.
• Structure facilities with suitable amounts, tenors, covenants and security.
• Apply credit scoring and internal risk grading to individual borrowers.
• Price loans to reflect expected loss, funding cost and capital.
• Monitor accounts, recognise early warning signs and classify loans.
• Explain expected credit loss provisioning and recovery options for distressed loans.

This programme is designed for those who originate, approve or oversee credit, including:

• Credit analysts and credit officers in banks
• Relationship managers for SME, corporate and commercial clients
• Loan officers in SACCOs and microfinance institutions
• Credit committee members and heads of credit
• Credit risk and portfolio monitoring officers
• Recovery and collections managers
• Internal auditors and examiners reviewing loan portfolios
• Trade finance and asset finance officers

Participants leave the course with:

• A reusable financial spreading and cash flow analysis template.
• A credit memorandum outline with the key sections and sample wording.
• A scorecard-style grading worksheet to rate borrowers consistently.
• A checklist of covenants and security documents by facility type.
• A list of early warning indicators to monitor on a live loan book.
• A recovery decision tree for distressed accounts.

The programme is organised around live decision points in the lending cycle. It uses:

• Short briefings followed immediately by case-based practice
• Borrower files from SME, trading, agribusiness and property sectors
• Spreadsheet exercises for ratio and cash flow analysis
• A mock credit committee where teams present and defend recommendations
• Discussion of participants' own problem accounts, anonymised

Attendance at the sessions and completion of the case exercises earns each participant a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion from Vision Reach Global Consultancy.