IT-enabled credit risk modernisation: a revolution under the cloak of normality

This paper focuses on IT-enabled credit risk modernisation in commercial retail banking. The empirical material is based upon a longitudinal case study conducted during 1993–1996 using an interpretive approach. It documents the introduction of a leading-edge computer-based decision support system into middle market corporate lending processes in a major UK retail bank. An analysis is constructed against the backcloth of contemporary social theory with the aim of stimulating debate regarding the ethics and politics of corporate risk positions. It is suggested that changes to the definition, assessment and management of credit risk in a major financial services institution, implemented through the introduction of a new technology and enacted in everyday acts of normal consumption, need debating. The paper concludes by asserting that if we turn aside from our responsibility to challenge the epistemological basis of contemporary risk assessment and management we may find that our social, political and economic landscape has changed without our consent.