In a major announcement, Experian, one of the three major credit reporting bureaus, have declared that consumers will not have access to their FICO credit score. This rule will be effective from this month. Experian has also informed Fair Isaac Corp. that it is terminating its relationship with myFICO.com which sells FICO credit scores directly to consumers.
Thus, from now onwards Experian customers will not be able to check out their FICO scores which the lenders are using while determining their credit level. Consumers can take a look at their Experian FICO score by contacting their lenders. However, consumers can still obtain their FICO scores from Equifax or TransUnion.
Lenders have always preferred using the Fair Isaac Corp's technology to make credit decisions each year. A mathematical formula is applied in order to decide a consumer's credit history. The factors taken into consideration are more or less the same for all the three credit bureaus which helps them produce a 3 digit score. This score helps the lenders to judge a person's likelihood of repaying the debt.
A lot of people are of the opinion that this decision of Experian is the result of a fall out between Experian and Fair Isaac. The latter had also filed a lawsuit against Experian, Equifax and TransUnion in 2006 as they have developed a different credit score model called VantageScore. However, whatever be the reason for such a decision, it will now become difficult for the consumers to know what most lenders are using to grade them as they will not have a direct access to Experian's score.