A recent pay slip and tax return are usually required to verify income claimed. A recent utility bill in the name of the applicant is frequently used to check the applicant’s address.
Credit appraisal and approval processes are highly standardized and frequently highly automated. Banks must strike a balance between the losses avoided from rejecting applications of lower quality and the income foregone as a result. If the criteria are too conservative many potentially profitable applicants will be turned away and get a card from a less conservative issuer. In most cases the approval process consists of no more than three controls described in the following articles.