Hit 500 automated loan decisions in a week and got worried

I work with an algorithm that processes small personal loans, and last month we crossed 500 approvals in a single week without a human looking at a single one. It made me wonder how many people got denied because of some quirk in the code rather than their actual ability to pay back the loan. Has anyone else seen that kind of volume where you just don't trust the numbers anymore?

3 comments

3 Comments

corap211mo ago

500 loans in a week with zero human oversight? That's wild lol. My friend works at a credit union and they cap automated approvals at like 50 a day because they're scared of exactly this kind of thing. One little bug or weird data point and suddenly someone's getting denied for no real reason. It's kinda scary to think about how many people might be stuck with high interest loans because an algorithm made a dumb call. The volume alone would make me nervous too, like how do you even check if the code is working right when it's moving that fast?

paulw531mo ago

Your friend's credit union capping it at 50 a day sounds like they're being super careful, but honestly, 500 loans a week isn't that huge a number when you break it down. That's like 71 loans a day, which is doable for a decent system if the credit criteria are simple. I'm not saying bugs never happen, but most of the time the algorithm is just checking basic stuff like income and credit score, not reading your horoscope. And if someone gets denied, they can always appeal or go to another lender, it's not like one bad algorithm is the end of the world. Plus, with all the data these companies have, they probably have better odds of getting it right than a human who might be tired on a Friday afternoon.

gavin2281mo ago

500 automated approvals and zero humans looking? Sounds like a solid plan, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe the code is just really confident in its decisions, like a cook who never tastes the soup but swears it's perfect. I'd be half expecting to see denials based on someone's astrological sign or the phase of the moon at this point.