FICO

Consumer advocates and fintechs say the traditional credit score and lending systems that use it are murky and perpetuate bias. FICO’s leader points out that new FICO scores use expanded data sets, just as fintechs do.

The sponsor’s strong track record mitigates risks, including “dirty current” loans and low FICO scores.

The regulator of the government-sponsored enterprises retreated from an earlier proposal that had barred VantageScore because of its ties to the credit bureaus.

Consumers' knowledge of the mortgage process and what it takes to purchase a home has not improved from four years ago and lenders have an opportunity to fill that need, Fannie Mae said.

The specialty finance company is contributing all of the collateral for the $259.7 million deal; by comparison, the previous deal included collateral contributed by Goldman Sachs.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has proposed barring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from using credit scores developed by VantageScore over concern about conflicts of interest with the joint venture of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Subprime originations are climbing in multiple consumer loan categories, including mortgages, but the increase is much smaller in the home loan sector than it is in other markets, according to TransUnion.

In a move designed to improve access to financial products for consumers with low credit scores and short credit histories, Experian, FICO and Finicity are developing an "UltraFICO" score that lets individuals share checking and savings account data and help lenders better assess risk.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is suspending its ongoing review of new credit scoring models and will instead move forward with creating a regulatory framework for providers of alternative credit scores to apply and be evaluated for use by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The annual progress report on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships reiterated that a new credit score model will likely not be operational until after the implementation of a new Single Security Initiative.