More on Fair Lending: Quality of Assistance

The scrutiny of fair lending continues. With top issues including pricing, overages, and credit scoring, regulators and the Department of Justice are looking at loan portfolios in new ways. However, most of the questions on fair lending come to a single issue: are there similarities or differences in how customers were treated?

The emphasis on similarity of treatment means that the services provided to customers are of crucial importance. Fair lending keeps coming down to quality of service provided to customers. A good fair lending program should include emphasis on service quality as a core component of each individuals job. Better yet, it should be central to the bank's culture.

Compliance managers need to have some sort of control for quality service. Developing and maintaining a quality of assistance checklist is rapidly becoming a "must have" for the compliance program. Work with front line lenders to develop a checklist or to review the ones you have. Draw on the sales skills of your best quality service lenders and put their techniques to work for everyone.

Copyright © 1996 Compliance Action. Originally appeared in Compliance Action, Vol. 1, No. 8, 5/96