Would anyone be willing to share a list of mitigating factors your bank uses to approve a loan that has exceptions to loan policy? We are trying to revamp our process to be more consistent.

We don't maintain a list of the mitigating factors really, as it will depend on circumstances. We do very little consumer lending so most of ours are related to commercial.

We do try to make sure we're more objective than subjective in it though. I would go back to a loan officer who claimed "good customer" and ask why that is. Is it large non-interest income, compensating balances, etc.? I just want them to spell out why we're giveing that approval/rate/fee for that entity when we it doesn't fit in our standard box.

We also require that our Credit Approval write-ups state the current rate from our internal rate sheet and any variation to that rate and the reason for the variation.