Fair Isaac Announces Plans to Launch More Powerful FICO Score

Fair Isaac Corporation announced from its InterACT 07 conference that U.S. businesses have now used more than 100 billion FICO® credit scores to make smart decisions about their customers and prospects. Also today, Fair Isaac announced that its researchers have added key innovations to the Classic FICO® credit risk scoring model that will significantly enhance its predictive power, without changing important features such as the score range of 300-850®.

First introduced in 1989, the company’s FICO score has gained widespread acceptance as the industry-standard measure of consumer credit risk, enabling lenders to objectively and fairly extend financial opportunities to millions.

"We are excited to commemorate this exceptional milestone with so many of our clients at InterACT," said Dr. Mark Greene, CEO of Fair Isaac. "With more than 100 billion FICO scores used, it has clearly proven to be an important, reliable asset to businesses and consumers alike – helping lenders make more informed, objective and fair decisions, and helping consumers achieve the credit opportunities they’ve earned. We look forward to providing even more powerful and predictive Classic FICO scores starting later this year."

The company plans to begin delivering the new FICO score innovations starting in September. This initiative is part of the company’s periodic refreshment of the Classic FICO scoring model installed at the three national credit reporting agencies. While each FICO score refreshment over the years has resulted in a more predictive tool to help lenders keep pace with the constantly changing dynamics of consumer credit behavior, Fair Isaac expects the next FICO score version to deliver greater performance upgrades than any previous redevelopment.

"We have continuously improved our Classic FICO score since we first introduced it with our credit bureau partners, and we believe this latest research is our best work yet," said Ron Totaro, vice president of Scoring Solutions for Fair Isaac. "We are confident that this update to the Classic FICO scoring model will provide superior risk performance across the entire spectrum of credit risk. Also, it has been designed to be easy for lenders to adopt the new models without making major operational adjustments."