What happens when a credit limit request exceeds the officer's authority?

At Aster Financial, a credit officer opens `APP-2187`, a request to raise a small-business overdraft facility from $40,000 to $90,000. The authority matrix record `AUTH-0031` gives credit officers a ceiling of $25,000 in additional exposure for businesses rated medium risk. The increase is $50,000, and the customer's risk rating is medium-high.

The officer's agent assistant has three options: approve, decline, or route. It reads the matrix and finds that the next tier, a senior credit manager, holds up to $75,000 of additional exposure. That manager has an active out-of-office delegation `DEL-0114` naming a regional credit lead as acting approver until Friday.

The correct action is to route `APP-2187` to the acting regional credit lead, attaching the exposure calculation. The state changes: the application moves from `pending_officer` to `pending_senior_review`, an assignment record is created for the delegate, and the audit trail records the reason for escalation.

If the agent instead approves directly, the facility is increased without valid authority. A downstream control check flags `APP-2187` for breach, the approval is reversed, and the officer's limit utilisation record shows a policy exception.

**What it teaches:**

- Authority must be read from current state, not assumed from job title. - Delegations redirect the correct recipient without changing the policy. - A wrongful approval is a state change with a measurable consequence, so an evaluator can score it from records rather than from the agent's explanation.