Fair Isaac Introduces Newest, Most Predictive FICO Score to Market

Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC), the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announced that TransUnion is the first credit reporting company to offer Fair Isaac’s newest FICO® score to businesses. TransUnion will market scores from the new model under the product name FICO® Risk Score, Classic 08.

Risk scores from Fair Isaac’s newest redevelopment of its FICO scoring model are expected to provide up to twice the improvement in predictive power compared with previous revisions to the model. This improvement will increase the ability of clients to reduce losses within current portfolios and to acquire more profitable prospects. Clients may achieve improvements in risk prediction over current FICO scores among key consumer segments, such as those opening new accounts or having prior derogatory information. In addition, this newest generation of FICO scores includes refinements to help lenders better address consumers who are comparatively new to credit.

“The FICO 08 score represents Fair Isaac’s best analytic work ever on our classic FICO credit risk model,” said Lisa Nelson, vice president of Global Scoring Solutions for Fair Isaac. “We encourage TransUnion’s customers to adopt the new score and take full advantage of its increased predictive power. We designed it to make their conversion to FICO 08 easier, with no major operational adjustments required.”

To assist clients’ conversion, the new FICO score retains the same 300-850® scoring range, score reason codes, minimum scoring criteria, and inquiry treatment as previous versions of the score. In addition, FICO® Risk Score, Classic 08 helps lenders protect against authorized-user account ‘piggybacking’ by incorporating new patent-pending technology that materially reduces the potential score impact associated with the abuse of authorized user accounts. By continuing to include authorized user accounts in score calculations, the FICO® 08 score continues to support lenders’ efforts to comply with federal regulations.

“Lenders striving to increase lending while mitigating risk need improved scoring tools that better assess the disparate risk profiles of different customer segments,” said Craig Focardi, research area director for TowerGroup. “Scoring tools also need to help protect against fraud in new credit applications-which remains a big concern for lenders-while still complying with regulations that permit ‘Authorized Users’ to establish credit via an existing third-party account. Lenders, guarantors, loan investors and other parties need new analytics to reinvent credit risk assessment and restore the US consumer lending and loan securitization markets.”

Fair Isaac also has developed two industry-specific versions of FICO Risk Score, Classic 08 for use by TransUnion clients who offer consumer auto financing and bankcards. TransUnion expects to make these new industry option FICO® scores available to lenders starting in April.

About TransUnion
As a global leader in credit and information management, TransUnion creates advantages for millions of people around the world by gathering, analyzing and delivering information. For businesses, TransUnion helps improve efficiency, manage risk, reduce costs and increase revenue by delivering comprehensive data and advanced analytics and decisioning. For consumers, TransUnion provides the tools, resources and education to help manage their credit health and achieve their financial goals. Through these and other efforts, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies worldwide. Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Chicago, TransUnion has employees in more than 25 countries on five continents. Visit TransUnion.com/business.

About Fair Isaac
Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC) transforms business by making every decision count. Fair Isaac’s Decision Management solutions combine trusted advice, world-class analytics and innovative applications to give organizations the power to automate, improve and connect decisions across their business. Clients in 80 countries work with Fair Isaac to increase customer loyalty and profitability, cut fraud losses, manage credit risk, meet regulatory and competitive demands, and rapidly build market share. Fair Isaac also helps millions of individuals manage their credit health through the www.myFICO.com website. Learn more about Fair Isaac at www.fairisaac.com.