Lo and behold, in today’s NYTimes.com there is an article about how sophisticated software sped up the subprime mortgage boom.
Below is the link to the article, but here’s the paragraph that caught my eye:
“The old way of processing mortgages involved a loan officer or broker collecting reams of income statements and ordering credit histories, typically over several weeks. But by retrieving real-time credit reports online, then using algorithms to gauge the risks of default, Mr. Jones’s software allowed subprime lenders like First Franklin to grow at warp speed.”
Here’s the link: Subprime Loan Machine