Norwegian who work in finance here. I doubt socialism is the cause. We have different financial regulations here, and I often hear Norwegian regulations are far more friendly to banks than across the pond.

It would surprise me greatly if an American bank was allowed to make arbitrary loan decisions. I am only familiar with the Norwegian financial system, but here it is a given that every single loan application that the bank either approves or rejects can stand up to scrutiny. They frequently have to in the case of collection cases (I.E determine if the bank had sufficient information to determine that a debtor could reasonably be expected to repay the debt they were issued).