James Adams is a Senior Analyst at Sageworks, a leading provider of credit risk management, loan loss reserve and stress testing software to financial institutions.

FORBES: For Banks, There Are Risks In Using Excel For Underwriting

This is a form of heightened scrutiny, though informal and less severe than some other options, and looks at a bank's capital and risk management, loan quality and liquidity.

FORBES: Can Banking Shake The Crisis?

Overexposure to construction and development loans: The first guideline states that if loans for construction, land development and other land are 100% or more of total risk capital, the institution is considered to have loan concentrations above prudent risk levels, and should have heightened risk management practices.

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Participants were asked to evaluate six applications per session, rating applications on personal, business, management, and financial risk before granting or denying the loan.

FORBES: The Problem With Incentives

Like it or not, interest rates are a risk management tool for lenders and if a borrower has become delinquent on a loan they need to have a last line of defense.

FORBES: Credit Card Bill: Consumers Still Get It In The End

Given the considerable loan impairments and business failures subsequently experienced (not to mention elevated unemployment levels), risk management is the topic du jour, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.

FORBES: For Banks, There Are Risks In Using Excel For Underwriting

ZestCash, which operates through a website people in need of a loan access, says it can charge less, perhaps 300%, by better economic modelling and better risk management, using Internet-type search of non-obviouis data.

FORBES: The Rich Future Of Money: The Poor

"Past experience has taught us that a bad loan crisis usually came three years after a period of abnormal credit surge, " Wei Guoxiong, chief risk management official with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency.

BBC: Workers at a factory in China