The techniques for quantifying and measuring risk, and the technology and instruments to manage and distribute it, simply did not exist. Individual credit-risk decisions tended to be made by lending and credit officers who used their judgment to decide who was given credit and who was not.
A characteristic of lending officers is that they are paid to make loans, and in competitive lending markets they want to make sure they maintain, if not increase, market share. This is to say not that lending officers are uninterested in risk management but rather that their focus is on finding a way to make the loan.