Credit judgment training for commercial lenders
Crediteris trains bankers to analyse, structure and recommend small-business loans the way they are made in Canada: on ASPE statements, under the PPSA or a Québec hypothec, and with Crown claims in view. It runs in French and English, and at least 70% of every module is practice, not video or reading.
The curriculum is specified in full: modules, minute budgets, cases and assessments. The learning platform is in development. No institution uses Crediteris yet, and this site does not suggest otherwise. Current status in detail.
Who it is for
Crediteris is for Canadian lenders who finance small and medium-sized businesses, and in particular for development bankers: people who assess viability, repayment capacity and risk, and who still have to find a responsible way to support the entrepreneur's growth.
- Bankers at four role levels, from new hires to leads who review other people's files. Each level has an onboarding pathway for people joining from outside and an upskilling pathway for people already in the role.
- Managers and coaches who follow their team's progress. They use the coaching guides and the team view, and they are not charged a licence. Why observers are free.
- Learning teams who assign pathways, run reports and connect Crediteris to their own learning management system.
What a learner actually does
A placement diagnostic comes first and sets the pathway, so an experienced lender does not sit through what they already know. After that, most of the time goes to working fictional Canadian credit files: spreading statements, finding the cash available for debt service, building a structure, writing the recommendation memo and defending it in a simulated credit committee.
Feedback names the specific mistake. A learner who calculates coverage on EBITDA is told that EBITDA is not cash available for debt service, and is sent to the ten minutes of content that fix it, not to the start of the module.
The competency framework
Eight domains cover credit analysis, risk assessment, financing structuring and credit recommendations, plus portfolio monitoring and the client conversation. Each domain has observable descriptors at four proficiency levels, and the assessment rubrics score against those descriptors.
- D1 · Business viability and industry
How the company makes money, its market and competitive position, its operating capacity, and how credible its growth is.
Area: Credit analysis
- D2 · Financial analysis under ASPE
Reading private-company statements and notes, judging how reliable they are, spreading them, and adjusting for quality of earnings.
Area: Credit analysis
- D3 · Cash flow and repayment capacity
Cash flow available for debt service, working capital, forecasts and sensitivities, and the primary and secondary sources of repayment.
Area: Credit analysis
- D4 · Risk assessment and due diligence
Ranking business, financial, management and external risks, assessing management and related parties, and finding red flags.
Area: Risk assessment
- D5 · Financing structuring
Matching facility, term and amortization to purpose, fitting repayment to cash flow, and designing covenants and security under Canadian law.
Area: Financing structuring
- D6 · Credit recommendation and judgment
Turning analysis into a clear rationale, stating residual risk, and defending or revising a position under challenge.
Area: Credit recommendation
- D7 · Portfolio stewardship
Monitoring covenants and reporting, annual reviews, deteriorating credits, and portfolio effects such as concentration.
Area: Risk assessment
- D8 · Client dialogue and development
Discovery conversations, explaining structure and guarantees plainly, delivering a difficult answer with a path forward, and coaching others.
Area: Credit recommendation
Four proficiency levels
- L1 · Foundation
- Knows the concepts and the credit process. Analyses a simple file correctly with guidance.
- L2 · Practitioner
- Analyses, structures and recommends standard files independently. Recognises when a file is not standard.
- L3 · Advanced
- Handles complex files: transitions, growth companies, sector stress, restructuring.
- L4 · Expert
- Shapes other people's judgment: reviews and challenges files, coaches, thinks at portfolio level.
Figures you can check
These come from the curriculum specification, version 1.0. The arithmetic behind each one is on the curriculum page. They describe the design of the program. None of them is a result from a client, because there are no clients yet.
- 27 modules, a placement diagnostic and a recurring case clinic: 68.5 hours in all.
- Every module is at least 70% active time. The lowest is 72.2% (CA-101); the catalogue as a whole is 82.4%.
- Seven fictional case companies in seven provinces, from an excavation contractor near Moncton to a software company in Waterloo.
- Eight pathways across four role levels, for onboarding and for upskilling.
- Every module authored in French and English in parallel and released in both languages on the same day.
What Crediteris does not do
Crediteris teaches credit judgment. It does not exercise it. It has no connection to lending systems, it never sees real borrower data, and it makes no credit decisions. Every number a learner works with belongs to a fictional case, and free-text fields warn learners not to enter client information.