Managing a Consumer Lending Business [Paperback]

David Lawrence (Author), Arlene Solomon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2002

"Managing a Consumer Lending Business" summarizes the lore and the knowledge of the business as the new century begins. It covers many subjects a good manager should know: the importance of how to attract enough good accounts to offset the inevitable bad accounts that every lender will get, controlling line sizes, encouraging use by good customers/discouraging or controlling the bad customers, managing profitability with predictability, if he or she is to effectively run a high-volume consumer business.

Editorial Reviews

Review

All high volume consumer lenders who wish to maximize portfolio performance will benefit from Managing a Consumer Lending Business. -- Barrett Burns, formerly EVP, Ford Motor Credit Company , August 2002

An outstanding book; finally, someone has written a complete tutorial and information source on what this business is all about. -- Jim Bailey, EVP Citibank (Retired) July 2002

Should be required reading for business, risk, and product managers. It wouldn't hurt if marketing managers read it either! -- John Coffman, founder and former President, MDS, September 2002

About the Author

David Lawrence and Arlene Solomon together run a training program in the management of consumer lending for major financial institutions domestically and worldwide.

David has over thirty years' experience in the consumer lending business. Over nine of these years were at Citicorp, where he was the Senior Credit Officer of the consumer banking group and later its representative on the Credit Policy Committee. David created the bank's first training program for senior management on the consumer credit process.

He is the author of both the 1984 Citicorp publication "Risk and Reward -- the Craft of Consumer Lending" and the 1992 Prentice Hall publication, "The Handbook of Consumer Lending," a leading work on the management and control of the high volume consumer lending business. He was also Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Consumer Lending.

Prior to joining Citicorp, David was with Ford Motor Company for 21 years. There, he held a variety of positions which included launching and managing credit businesses in Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan.

Arlene has extensive experience in consulting for a wide range of businesses. In addition to general consulting in organization and training issues, Arlene's company designs and develops training and general communications programs. The work frequently involves collaboration with senior subject matter experts in complex areas, thus blending content and training expertise.

Arlene's firm has been involved in developing training courses for senior managers in planning and implementing principles of credit, marketing, advertising, and data processing. Her firm also develops courses in product knowledge, sales and general management.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Solomon Lawrence Partners (July 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971753709
• ISBN-13: 978-0971753709
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in its Class, January 19, 2004

By 

RobRoy (Lakeview, Arkansas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Managing a Consumer Lending Business (Paperback)

Managing a Consumer Lending Business is an excellent primer covering both fundamental practices and principles for safe and sound lending. This book covers the basics well and should be required reading for management trainees and those new to consumer lending. This 2002-published book is superior to older, now-obsolete books on consumer lending, and is spiced with anecdotes, quotes and references to mistakes that made headlines. The chapter on recessions is germaine and usually neglected by other books. The only criticisms are minor: a few too many references to the authors' consulting practice, and it would be improved by a chapter or two on securitization and the gain-on-sale practices.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comprehensive Guide, October 24, 2003

By 

G. Yu (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing a Consumer Lending Business (Paperback)

This book is very well written. It is about managing a healthy consumer lending business by using systematic ways to plan, acquire, and maintain a portfolio and by emphasizing quantitative tools to measure its performance and manage risks. I like this book also because it provides careful accounts about the history of this industry.
This book is an excellent reference for serious practitioners. Portfolio managers and financial analysts can acquire important concepts for managing their businesses. You might even be able to start your own consumer lending business by following the steps introduced in the book. Meanwhile, this is an attractive book for consumers to equip with extensive knowledge to deal with credit card issuers, collection companies and to take care of their mortgages and automobile loans, etc.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good primer for analysts looking for more domain knowledge, September 5, 2006

By 

Jeomoan Kurian - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing a Consumer Lending Business (Paperback)

Managing a Consumer Lending Business by David Lawrence and Arlene Solomon is a good primer I recommend for the readers of S4SAS.com and analysts working in the areas of consumer lending in general.

This book covers the fundamental principles of lending along with the practices at various product life cycles. While conducting SAS training, I observed that lot analysts do not know why managers look for some information and why they insist on certain format the information to be presented. After reading this book, the reader will have a background to understand the business requirements better and will be familiar with necessary lending related terminologies.

I found the following topics covered in the book useful for an analyst.

1. Overview to the consumer lending process and products.
2. Acquisition and direct mailing - segmentation, prescreen processes and practices.
3. The use of credit scoring, score monitoring and reporting process.
4. Portfolio Management and utilization of behavioral scores, strategy tracking.
5. Collection strategies and tactics
6. Private label credit cards and retail sales (dealer) financing.
8. Importance of Management Information systems.