Gain the credit knowledge board members need to provide effective oversight of commercial lending.
Board Members come from diverse professional backgrounds and often have varying levels of credit expertise. This Learning Path equips Board Members—especially those with limited exposure to commercial business or commercial real estate lending—with the foundational knowledge needed to recognize the key credit issues embedded in any loan request that comes before the Board.
The objective is practical: strengthen a Board Member's ability to ask the right questions, quickly identify where repayment strength is coming from, and spot the conditions that most often lead to credit deterioration—without requiring deep technical underwriting skills. By the end of the path, Board Members will be better prepared to evaluate whether a request is built on reliable cash flow, reasonable assumptions, and enforceable protections.
The Board Member Learning Path is organized into four components that combine short background readings ("Quick Hits") with targeted courses. Components 1 and 2 are concise Quick Hits—generally under two pages each—designed to build baseline credit fluency with minimal time commitment. These refreshers prepare Board Members to get the most out of the courses in components 3 and 4, which translate foundational concepts into a structured way to evaluate real loan requests.
Together, the readings and courses reinforce the essential questions that apply across commercial business and CRE credit:
Short readings (generally under two pages each) introducing essential concepts
Brief overviews of fundamental real estate credit topics
2 courses
A clear overview of the core pillars used to assess credit quality—applicable to both business and real estate lending requests.
Highlights why cash-flow proxies can be misleading and contrasts them with the Uniform Credit Analysis (UCA) approach. Emphasizes how to frame a credit decision through:
2 courses
Explains how rental income, vacancy, expenses, and cap rates drive NOI and property value, and how typical stress tests are used to assess vulnerability to market shifts.
Shows how property cash flow and guarantor cash flow are combined to determine total cash available for servicing debt—supporting clearer Board-level judgment on repayment capacity and overall relationship strength.