What Drives Lending Inquisitors’ Judgement & Decision-Making: Behavioural Factors Analysis through Kruskal–Wallis & Fuzzy AHP

Abstract The present study investigates what drives Lending inquisitors’ judgement & decision-making behaviour that influences credit risk assessment in Indian banks. This research investigates three aspects: risk attitude & information acquisition behaviour, the effect of experience on lending, and desirable attributes of lending inquisitors. For the first area, Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric test is applied, for second area correlation and Cramer’s V is applied on fictitious case analysis and for third aspect 27 attributes of inquisitors through unstructured personal interviews are then analysed by applying Kruskal Wallis Test, Factor analysis and Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP). Fuzzy AHP technique was applied to understand the key personal attributes and sub-attributes, which play a major role in Lending inquisitors’ judgement & decision-making behaviour. The risk attitude and information acquisition provided no substantial relationship between the two. Whereas, in the second area, which is assessing the impact of experience on decision-making behaviour, the result shows that the senior and junior credit inquisitors are cautious in acquiring the information as compared to outsourced credit inquisitors.