By: Amanda Roth
The final level of validation for your risk-based pricing program is to validate for profitability. Not only will this analysis build on the two previous analyses, but it will factor in the cost of making a loan based on the risk associated with that applicant. Many organizations do not complete this crucial step. Therefore, they may have the applicants grouped together correctly, but still find themselves unprofitable.
The premise of risk-based pricing is that we are pricing to cover the cost associated with an applicant. If an applicant has a higher probability of delinquency, we can assume there will be additional collection costs, reporting costs, and servicing costs associated with keeping this applicant in good standing. We must understand what these cost may be, though, before we can price accordingly. Information of this type can be difficult to determine based on the resources available to your organization. If you aren’t able to determine the exact amount of time and costs associated with the different loans at different risk levels, there are industry best practices that can be applied.
Of primary importance is to factor in the cost to originate, service and terminate a loan based on varying risk levels. This is the only true way to validate that your pricing program is working to provide profitability to your loan portfolio.