Your FICO Score
In the United States, your credit reports are developed by three credit bureaus, each of which might have different information about your credit history. When you got to a bank to receive a loan, they will use these credit reports to investigate and assess how reliable you are and how likely you are to pay the loan back. Poor results for this investigation can result in high interest rates, denied loans, and slower mortgage application periods.
What you may not know is that most American banks will use a 3rd-party credit-scoring system called FICO, which pulls information not only from your credit reports but also from a number of other places to determine your reliability. By learning about your FICO score and all of the factors that have gone into creating it, you now have the upper hand and are able to strengthen your weaknesses and correct errors. But what is the best way to receive your FICO score and lean about all of the contributing factors?
What's in your FICO Score?
FICO Scores are calculated from a lot of different credit data in your credit report. This data can be grouped into five categories as outlined below. The percentages in the chart reflect how important each of the categories is in determining your FICO score.
These percentages are based on the importance of the five categories for the general population. For particular groups - for example, people who have not been using credit long - the importance of these categories may be somewhat different.
How credit scoring helps you
Credit scores give lenders a fast, objective measurement of your credit risk. Before the use of scoring, the credit granting process could be slow, inconsistent and unfairly biased.
Credit scores – especially FICO® scores, the most widely used credit bureau scores – have made big improvements in the credit process. Because of credit scores:
- People can get loans faster.
Scores can be delivered almost instantaneously, helping lenders speed up loan approvals. Today many credit decisions can be made within minutes. Even a mortgage application can be approved in hours instead of weeks for borrowers who score above a lender's “score cutoff”. Scoring also allows retail stores, Internet sites and other lenders to make “instant credit” decisions.
- Credit decisions are fairer.
Using credit scoring, lenders can focus only on the facts related to credit risk, rather than their personal feelings. Factors like your gender, race, religion, nationality and marital status are not considered by credit scoring.
- Credit “mistakes” count for less.
If you have had poor credit performance in the past, credit scoring doesn't let that haunt you forever. Past credit problems fade as time passes and as recent good payment patterns show up on your credit report. Unlike so-called “knock out rules” that turn down borrowers based solely on a past problem in their file, credit scoring weighs all of the credit-related information, both good and bad, in your credit report.
- More credit is available.
Lenders who use credit scoring can approve more loans, because credit scoring gives them more precise information on which to base credit decisions. It allows lenders to identify individuals who are likely to perform well in the future, even though their credit report shows past problems. Even people whose scores are lower than a lender's cutoff for “automatic approval” benefit from scoring. Many lenders offer a choice of credit products geared to different risk levels. Most have their own separate guidelines, so if you are turned down by one lender, another may approve your loan. The use of credit scores gives lenders the confidence to offer credit to more people, since they have a better understanding of the risk they are taking on.
- Credit rates are lower overall.
With more credit available, the cost of credit for borrowers decreases. Automated credit processes, including credit scoring, make the credit granting process more efficient and less costly for lenders, who in turn have passed savings on to their customers. And by controlling credit losses using scoring, lenders can make rates lower overall. Mortgage rates are lower in the United States than in Europe, for example, in part because of the information - including credit scores - available to lenders here. Knowing and improving your score can also lead to more favorable interest rates.
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