Minnesota's subprime past

Minnesota's subprime past includes booms and busts

Excerpt: Minnesota has had its share of subprime lenders go from boom to bust.

The story of

1. GREEN TREE FINANCIAL
   
2. OLYMPIC FINANCIAL
   
3. METRIS COMPANIES
   

Snagged on the bottom

Excerpt:

The subprime allure has been at work inside Wells Fargo since 1982. What was then Norwest bought Des Moines-based Dial Finance Corp., one of the first major banks to wade into subprime lending. At the time, most lenders who took on risky borrowers were small, family-owned operations that could service only a limited number of applicants. With $1.1 billion in assets, Dial was one of the country's largest consumer-finance companies to specialize in subprime loans.

"Dial had an incredible reputation," Campbell recalled. The company "knew how to underwrite and manage that segment of the credit market."

Dial later became Norwest Financial and now Wells Fargo Financial. It also became a profit machine for Norwest at a time when the bank was struggling to overcome bad commercial real estate loans in the 1980s.

http://www.prosper.com/ is the ultimate subprime!

Prosper: The eBay of Loans?