They have had the incentive to do so since they had borne the credit risk on their books. However, in many countries, from being originators of loans and bearers of risk, banks have become mere originators of loans and distributors of risk, because the traditional view of the role of banks has changed considerably in recent years.
First, the availability of information technology has reduced the cost of information collection and maintenance considerably. Thus, a widespread belief has arisen that information on credit quality of small borrowers who may be widely dispersed across jurisdictions can be made impersonal, packaged, processed, and sold.