Loan officers reviewing an agent's work need to be ready for the moment money leaves: the drawdown. This checklist covers access and red lines on conditions and payees, shadowing on held drawdowns, reviewer training and exam, a practicum that includes an unmet condition and a changed payee, a drill and sign-off with disbursement limits.
Where does the lending reviewer meet the agent?
After credit approves a loan, the lending team takes it to drawdown. The agent tracks conditions precedent, chases documents, checks that security documents are signed and registered, prepares the completion pack and drafts the disbursement instruction. Most of that is depth 1 to 3. Disbursing is depth 4: once funds reach the borrower or a solicitor, getting them back is slow and uncertain.
The reviewer's questions are specific. Has every condition truly been met, or has the agent accepted a document that only looks right? Is the payee the one in the approved facility, verified through a trusted channel? Does the amount match the approval, net of fees? A new reviewer tends to trust the completion checklist the agent prepared. Training must teach them to open the documents behind it. The decision to lend sits upstream with credit; this checklist is about lending it out correctly.
How do you use the checklist?
The head of lending operations owns it. Tick each item with a date. No disbursement rights until item 15. The teaching method is in how to train the lending team to review AI agent decisions. The general idea of onboarding applies, and the sequence across teams is set out in the guide to training teams for AI agents.
The checklist
Before the reviewer starts 1. Read-only access to the loan workspace and the record. 2. Agent capabilities read: condition tracking (1), document chasing (3), security checks (1), completion pack drafting (2), disbursement instruction (4, held). 3. Red lines signed: never disburse with an unmet condition, whatever the deadline; never pay to account details that differ from the approved facility without verification through a known channel; never approve a disbursement you prepared. 4. Buddy named.
Shadowing, week 1 5. Two days on held drawdowns. 6. Seen a drawdown held for an unmet condition. 7. Seen a payee change verified by phone to a known number.
Training, weeks 1 to 5 8. Shared foundation complete; test passed. 9. Reviewer modules complete; written exam passed.
Practicum, weeks 6 and 7 10. Two weeks of real held drawdowns, each confirmed by the buddy. 11. Coverage: an unmet condition, a changed payee, a partial drawdown and a drawdown near the end of an availability period. 12. Incident drill completed.
Sign-off 13. Assessor sign-off; no missed red line. 14. Disbursement limit recorded. 15. Renewal date set.
Worked example
An illustrative business lender brings Sample Officer Y into a lending operations team of six. The agent prepares drawdowns on term loans and holds every disbursement.
In shadowing, Sample Officer Y watches her buddy hold a drawdown of 250,000 because the agent had marked a debenture as "registered" on the strength of a filing receipt emailed by the borrower's adviser. That receipt was an external document; the buddy checks the registry directly and finds the filing still pending. The drawdown waits two days. In another case, the borrower emails new bank details for the funds two hours before completion. The buddy calls the borrower's finance director on the number in the facility file; the change is genuine, but the call is logged as the verification.
Her practicum covers 45 held drawdowns. She holds one where an insurance certificate named the wrong property, and declines to rush a drawdown at the end of its availability period without the final condition. She is signed off with a disbursement limit of 500,000. Lending teams that also onboard new borrowers can compare this list with the reviewer onboarding checklist for the onboarding team.
How is lending different from credit review?
Credit decides whether and how much to lend; lending makes sure the money goes out correctly and on the agreed terms. The skills overlap, but the red lines differ. A reviewer who moves between the two needs both checklists. The onboarding team's KYC reviewers, covered in how to train the onboarding team to review AI agent decisions, sit earlier still.
Questions people ask
Can the agent ever disburse on its own?
Only if the lender decides so for a narrow class of loans and the agent's certificate covers disbursement at depth 4. Most lenders keep every disbursement held for a person.
What if a drawdown deadline forces a fast decision?
The deadline does not change the red lines. If a condition is not met, the drawdown waits or the facility terms are amended by people with that authority. Train reviewers to say so calmly.
Who sets up the reviewer's system access?
IT, on the lending manager's request. IT's own reviewers follow the reviewer onboarding checklist for the IT team.