Question about instant approvals

[Anonymous]

When a CC company says that you can get your approval in 30 seconds, 60 seconds, etc., how do they do that, anyone know?

Is it like a min. score required and if you meet that criteria you are auto approved.

If you don't meet that and they give you the "your application requires further processing or whatever" bit and then they do a manual review?

I mean obviously it is a computer usually making the decision so it must have some sort of criteria that has to be met to get auto approve, right?

[Anonymous]

Yep, that's the idea, but instant approvals don't just look at score, either.  Basically they get your report as a data feed, and if they have systems in place to read it electronically, they can tell what sorts of baddies you have and whether you meet their most basic qualifications even without a human ever laying eyes on the report.  Manual review is reserved for borderline cases or for whatever specific situations they've written into their underwriting algorithm.

[Anonymous]

Thanks!