Loan Officers’ Information Focus in SME Loan Assessment : A Case Study

This study examines bank loan officers' information focus in terms of the relative importance of hard and soft information. Data was collected from 75 experienced loan officers at a large Swedish commercial bank, generating 7425 observations, and analysed the information used in assessing loan applications from small and medium-sized enterprises. The findings indicate that the loan officers place a significantly greater emphasis on hard than on soft information irrespective of the bank's framework for loan assessments, the loan officers' task design, or the various loan types focused in the analyses