Question about assets when applying or CLI

[masscredit]

I don't see this often. Recently noticed a quesiton about total assets when I requested a CLI from Discover. I can see them asking about income but why do the assets matter?  The examples were investments, checking, savings etc...  I could have $10 in the bank and $100K in cash. They don't care about the cash. 

[pipeguy]

Sometimes I put $00 and other times I put $80000. Doesn't really seem to matter. Could I get my hands on $100k in cash?  Yeah, I could but why bother for the usual $500 cli they usually grant me?

[Anonymous]

Assets can certainly be cash, as they could very easily be put into a bank account and proven if need be.  It would be semantics, but one could put their $100k in cash into a bank account on X date and then the day after X date update their "assets" with Discover.  The following day, they could withdraw their $100k from savings and go back to having it in cash form.  Regardless of how you spin it, this person possesses at least $100k in assets.

Assets matter because they represent reasonable funds one has access to in order to pay off debts.  If someone loses their source of income (the common number CCCs want to know) their secondary/backup source and ability to repay a debt would come from assets.  While assets aren't as important as income, like income, the more the better from the eyes of the lender no doubt.

[Anonymous]

I see this question on every pre-approval mailer from AmEx.

[Anonymous]

No doubt the fact that many lenders don't ask about assets means that this piece of data is far less important than income, something they all ask for.  If I'm a lender though, to me "more is more" so the greater the data I have on someone, the better.  Knowing assets isn't going to be a make or break type of data point, but could at least in part influence lender decisions (such as CLIs).