Banker's lending decision making: a psychological approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze recent findings in the research on bankers' lending decision making, to merge relevant findings in psychology and economics and create a comprehensive review of the literature. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a systematic article search for empirical studies when conducting the research. Findings – The findings are analyzed on the basis of human decision‐making research. The results of the review are three conclusions about loan officers' decision making: their dependency on bank characteristics, their decision‐making biases, and their deliberate and intuitive reasoning approaches. Originality/value – The paper's findings are important, both as a summary of the literature on lending decision making and also as a foundation for future research.