Fair Isaac, Equifax Battle Over India

India this week became the newest battleground for the major consumer credit information firms as Fair Isaac Corp. and Equifax Inc. both launched partnerships there with locally based firms to serve the market.

Equifax teamed with Indian credit rating agency Crisil and non-banking financial company Tata Capital Ltd (TCL) to begin a credit information firm in India. Equifax applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate a credit information company.

Crisil is a ratings, research, risk and policy advisory firm. Tata Capital Ltd. is a subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata group. Equifax operates in 14 countries around the world.

Yesterday, Fair Isaac announced an alliance with High Mark Credit Information Services of India to introduce Fair Isaac's FICO credit risk scoring technology to Indian lenders.

High Mark will market Fair Isaac’s Global FICO Score, a product described as a “scalable solution for both mature and emerging credit markets where the volume and depth of credit bureau data are evolving at an accelerated rate.”

According to a press release, lenders may use Global FICO Score at all stages in the consumer credit lifecycle to improve decisions throughout the lending process, from account acquisition and account origination to full portfolio management. Fair Isaac reported that

Global FICO Score is designed to help clients meet Basel II and other regulatory compliance requirements.

Fair Isaac also has alliances with DP Information Group in Singapore and with Korea Credit Bureau in the Republic of Korea. In addition, Asian lenders are using Global FICO score in Taiwan and Thailand.