Only 35 percent of bankers recently surveyed by Sageworks said they felt confident in their loan pricing process, leading the company to raise concerns about whether bankers could do more to develop a clear pricing strategy.

“When 60 [percent] or 70 percent don’t feel good about their pricing … Something’s wrong,” said Rob Ashbaugh, Sageworks’ senior risk management consultant.

The financial information company polled 317 bankers from across the country during a March 22 webinar about loan pricing. Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of respondents said they were underpricing their loans, 6 percent said they were overpricing their loans and 37 percent said they either weren’t sure or weren’t measuring their loan pricing process, the firm said.

Ashbaugh attributes some of that uncertainty to the current rate environment, combined with intense competition in the banking industry.

“I think people are really just trying to win deals. There’s a lot of pressure because spreads are low and there’s a lot of competition,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of banks really take the time to go in and build a pricing model.”

Of course, Sageworks conducted the poll in part because the firm has developed a new loan pricing product, and it wanted to test the waters and see how its clients were generally feeling about their own pricing process.

But Ashbaugh said that pricing should be at the forefront of bankers’ minds as low interest rates and intense competition are likely to persist.

“Pricing has always been an imperfect thing,” he said. “You have a million tools to do it and if you don’t look at the whole scenario, you’re leaving stuff on the table. You’re pricing to the other guy’s balance sheet down the street.”