How a bank
reads a business.

The commercial banker's judgment, from every chair at the table.

Explained in guides, practised in cases and one-minute files, applied with tools — your call first, then the senior banker's. Free, and always.

Find your chair Make today's call

guides: 86explain the read
cases: 14read from 23 chairs
one-minute files: 172a new one every day
all of it, always: Freeno account, no paywall

SAME REQUEST

Two manufacturers. One gets the yes.

ISSUE 01 · COMPOSITE CASE

Pacific Premium Foods

Premium ready meals

REVENUE, TWO YEARS: +50%US$28m → US$42m
THE ASK: +US$1.5mWorking capital line US$3.5m → US$5.0m

ISSUE 04 · COMPOSITE CASE

Highview Industries

Precision sheet metal

REVENUE, TWO YEARS: +36%US$28m → US$38m
THE ASK: +US$1.5mWorking capital line US$2.5m → US$4.0m

Which one would you back?

COMPOSITE TEACHING CASES — FICTIONAL · ALL 14 CASES →

WHO THIS IS FOR

14 CASES · 23 CHAIRS · 3 TOOLS · 86 GUIDES · ALL FREE

GETTING IN

25 GUIDES · 4 QUIZZES · 1 FREE CASE

You're preparing for a commercial banking interview, or moving into credit from somewhere else.

Through this door

ON THE DESK

14 CASES · 3 TOOLS · 22 GUIDES

You're on a lending desk, first book or fifteenth year, and want your read against a senior's.

Through this door

FOR BORROWERS

27 GUIDES · 1 TOOL · 12 CHAIRS

You're the founder, owner or CFO whose facility is up for review.

Through this door

HOW A BANK WORKS

18 GUIDES · 5 CHAIRS · THE BOOK

You hold the shares, read the results, or just want to know what a bank actually does with your money.

Through this door

Not sure which door, or want the whole order? The reading orders, door by door

THE IN-TRAY

Where do you read from?

24 files, 20 minutes, one card: three short credit files from each chapter of How Bankers Think, each call read against a senior banker’s.

START THE PLACEMENT →

NO SIGNUP · NO SCORE

TODAY'S FILE · 2026-11-05

THE FIRST QUESTION · CHAPTER 8

A wine exporter's June balance sheet shows stock at a high and cash at a low. A colleague's draft paper says 'liquidity deteriorating'.

Before you sign it off, what do you ask?

MORE ON CHAPTER 8 · THE THREE TRANSLATIONS →THE IN-TRAY →

THIS WEEK ON THE DESK

ISSUE 14 / 2026-11-03

Pacific Premium II

MANUFACTURINGWATCHINGDIFFICULTY 3/5 · 6 MIN

Twelve months since the restructure, and Pacific Premium's MD is back in the room with the numbers doing the talking: four term-loan payments on time, DSO down from 82 days to 64, inventory down, margin back over 10%. He asks to restore the working line from US$1.2m to the old US$3.5m. Two quiet things sit in the file: nine of the eighteen days of DSO improvement were bought with a 2% prompt-payment discount, and capex ran at 0.36× depreciation while the balance sheet healed.

Open the case

THE REQUEST

Term loanUS$2.3m left (4 of 12 paid)

RequestedRestore the working line to US$3.5m

Grounds“Twelve clean months”

THE SECOND MEETING

We're fixing the plumbing first.
Four numbers better. One of them quietly bought.
The RM calls it a model rehabilitation.

FY25 SNAPSHOT

SOURCE: COMPANY-PREPARED · UNAUDITED · COMPOSITE CASE — FICTIONAL

REVENUE

US$43.5m

▲+3.6% — growth paused

DSO

64 days

▼−18 · 9 of them bought

OCF

US$1.3m

▲back positive

TERM LOAN

4 of 12

▲payments on schedule

CAPEX / DEPRN

0.36×

▼renewal deferred

FIGURES ROUNDED · FY26 SNAPSHOT (composite case) · COMPOSITE CASE — FICTIONAL

EVERY CASE, NEWEST FIRST · 14 FILES →

THE OLDEST QUESTION IN LENDING

Character first. Cash flow first. Collateral second.

1912

“Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property?”
“No, sir; the first thing is character.”

J. P. Morgan, US House Money Trust Investigation, 19 December 1912

2020

“Collateral should be considered the institution's second way out.”

European Banking Authority, Guidelines on loan origination and monitoring (EBA/GL/2020/06), paragraph 143

A century apart, the same answer: a bank lends on the business, and reads its cash before it believes its profit. Every page on this site is that read, from one chair or another.

HOW BANKS WORK →CREDIT ANALYSIS FOR BEGINNERS →HOW BANKS APPROVE BUSINESS LOANS →

HIGHBANK

Every case lives on one street.

14 files and 23 chairs: the borrower, the banker and everyone with a stake in the call.

Every case is set in one continuing world. Walk the Highbank street — one building per file, in the order the bank met them.

FROM THE BOOK

How Bankers Think

Inside Commercial Banking's Hidden Curriculum

The way commercial bankers actually think — the temperament the interview is really testing, made explicit.

Commercial banking is defined less by technical content — learnable in a year — than by a specific way of looking at the world. Eight chapters and three appendices set out the frameworks senior bankers use and the dispositions they listen for.

BY MICHAEL SHANG · HIGHBANK PRESS

Buy on Amazon About the book

Paperback, ebook, and hardcover · First edition 2026 · 370 pages