He is chairman of the board's management development and compensation committee and also sits on the board's corporate governance committee and its finance committee, which oversees policies for managing credit and risk exposure at the firm.

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The use of derivatives to lay off and buy credit risk can also obscure sources of credit exposure.

ECONOMIST: American banks

In addition, third parties with no exposure to the particular credit risk can bet on whether the Greeks will default.

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It is based on more than 22, 000 financial statements (including those of businesses and their owners) from over 6, 600 businesses distributed across industries and sales ranges in the U.S. The predictive model is aimed at helping banks quantify and standardize their credit risk assessments, helping companies perform risk exposure due diligence on partner companies, and helping private businesses evaluate their own creditworthiness.

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Importantly, these bets provide a liquid market for credit risk, which lowers the cost of hedging for those with primary exposure, and provides the market with better information about whether Greece or General Electric is a good credit risk.

FORBES: Credit Derivatives Don't Kill Countries, Politicians Do

But, apparently, no Wall Street analyst ever looked into whether U.S. banks had exposure to European credit and were at risk.

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World Acceptance funds itself through lines of credit from Wells Fargo and Bank of America, so those banks already have exposure to consumers with lower credit scores, who pay higher interest and pose a greater risk of default.

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