Fair Isaac : FICO Continues Commitment to Alternative Data to Responsibly Increase Credit Access

At FICO, we are continuously innovating scoring products and services that create greater financial inclusion across communities and empower lenders' decision making. We are a longtime leader in incorporating alternative data, which is typically not housed at the credit bureaus, to help expand credit access for consumers who are otherwise ineligible for a traditional credit score.

A few years ago, we developed FICO® Score XD, which incorporates alternative data - data that resides outside of traditional credit files - to generate scores for consumers who do not have credit files or whose credit files contain outdated or limited information. It gives millions of U.S. consumers who otherwise could not be scored reliably, the opportunity to receive a FICO® Score and to be considered for credit. FICO Score XD scores more than 26.5 million previously unscorable consumer files. According to our findings, consumers with a FICO Score XD of over 620 that go on to obtain credit, subsequently receive and maintain a high traditional FICO® Score in the future - 75% scored 620 or higher in the following 24 months.

To encourage broader adoption of FICO® Score XD and financial inclusion, FICO is excited to announce that during the next 12-month period, through January 2022, FICO will not be charging any FICO fees to Equifax for FICO Score XD for all new FICO Score XD customers obtaining the score from Equifax. Equifax will still establish the fees for the cost of data, processing and set pricing for FICO Score XD. Lenders interested in adopting FICO® Score XD are invited to visit: https://www.fico.com/en/solutions/financial-inclusion-and-growth.

We hope this initiative will enable lenders to more quickly and efficiently identify consumers that meet their credit criteria while simultaneously promoting financial inclusion. To learn more, download FICO's white paper, 'Expanding credit access with alternative data: when used responsibly, untapped data sources can help score millions more consumers' which can be found at www.fico.com/xd.