Credit Analysis and Lending
Five Cs, ratios, cash-flow lending and credit memos.
Taught by Dipesh Koirala · CFA, Financial Analyst
What you'll learn
- Assess a borrower against the Five Cs of credit and summarise the key risks in plain language
- Spread three years of financial statements into a standard credit template with justified adjustments
- Calculate and interpret leverage, coverage and liquidity ratios, including DSCR and net debt to EBITDA
- Size a term loan from cash flow available for debt service and test it under a downside case
- Structure a facility with suitable security, tenor, amortisation, pricing and financial covenants
- Write a concise credit memo with specific risks, real mitigants and a defensible recommendation
About this course
Learn to think and write like a bank credit analyst. This course is for junior analysts, relationship managers, finance graduates and business owners who want to understand how lenders decide whether to say yes. You will apply the Five Cs of credit, spread a company's financial statements into a standard template, and calculate the leverage, coverage and liquidity ratios that drive lending decisions, including DSCR, interest cover and net debt to EBITDA. You will then size debt from cash flow, structure a facility with the right security, tenor, amortisation and pricing, and set financial covenants with sensible headroom. The course finishes with a complete credit memo: executive summary, risks and mitigants, and a clear recommendation a credit committee can approve. You should be comfortable reading an income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Spreadsheet skills are enough, and short optional Python snippets show how to automate the credit analysis maths.
Course content
7 lessons- 1The Credit Analyst's Job and the Five Cs of CreditWhat credit analysts do, how a lending decision is made, and the Five Cs framework behind every approval.Preview
- 2Spreading Financial StatementsTurn a borrower's accounts into a standard credit template, with the adjustments lenders expect to see.
- 3Ratios That Matter: Leverage, Coverage and LiquidityCalculate and interpret the ratios lenders rely on, and learn to read them together rather than alone.
- 4Cash-Flow Lending and Debt CapacitySize a loan from the cash a business generates and stress-test it under a realistic downside.
- 5Structuring the Facility: Security, Tenor and PricingChoose the facility type, security, repayment profile and pricing that match the borrower's needs and risks.
- 6Covenants, Monitoring and Early Warning SignsSet financial covenants with sensible headroom and monitor loans so problems surface early.
- 7Writing the Credit MemoStructure a clear, balanced credit memo that a committee can read quickly and approve with confidence.