This study aims at identifying the differences between Syrian commercial public and
private banks regarding the role of client's creditworthiness criteria and their relative
importance in the credit decision-making process, in addition to recognizi
ng the
differences in empowerment between bank's branches in credit decision.
To achieve the objectives of the study, a questionnaire is designed to cover the
creditworthiness fields according to 5Cs model, which includes (Character- Capability –
Capital – Collateral- and Condition). A Descriptive approach is used where hypotheses are
tested by Independent Sample T-test from SPSS.
The results showed that all 5Cs criteria are important in the credit decision- making
process, but their importance differs among private and public commercial banks except
for the collateral, where private banks place more weight to this criterion. Both types of
banks have a high degree of centralization regarding credit decision, and restrict the power
of their branches in dealing with lending files.
