Strikingly, the Fed's loan-officer survey showed that 70% of respondents expect the quality of their credit-card and other consumer-loan portfolios to get worse.

ECONOMIST: The credit crisis

Mr Ayres predicts that automated decision-making will soon see other professional jobs going the same way as that of the bank-loan officer, once well-paid and responsible and now a mere call-centre operative, paid peanuts to parrot the words a computer prompts.

ECONOMIST: Automated decision-making

An underwriter has not approved and issued your mortgage pre-approval, your loan officer did.

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Traditionally a loan officer might fund 5-10 loans in a month.

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If you, as an individual, entered your local bank and asked for a loan with a similar debt-to-income ratio, what do you think the loan officer would say?

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Dabney, now a mortgage loan officer with Wells Fargo Bank, described Jordan as a hard-working competitor.

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One investor is Paul Yanez, a loan officer at mortgage lender Countrywide Financial (nyse: CFC - news - people ), who lives in Valencia, Calif.

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All the business owner has to do is appear viable, non-threatening and reasonable, and the credit officer will be ready to move the loan forward out of pure relief.

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In its most recent senior loan officer survey in July, the Fed found that 60% of commercial banks tightened lending standards to large- and middle-market firms, and 65% had tightened lending standards for loans to small companies.

FORBES: Credit Crisis