Joanne Gaskin

If you have ever applied for credit, the lender reviewing your application most likely pulled your credit report and credit score. What makes up a credit report and why could credit scores be different across lenders? The FICO Score is the credit score used in 90% of lending decisions. For a quick refresher on what the FICO Score is and isn’t (for example, the FICO…

You may have heard that alternative data holds great potential for expanding access to credit to more consumers to help them achieve their financial goals. Indeed, more data can enable credit score providers like FICO to provide a more complete snapshot of consumers’ credit behavior and potential risk. While FICO has been the leader in developing innovative ways to in…

I had the chance to attend the Structured Finance Industry Group’s annual conference in Las Vegas, where SFIG’s members, including securities investors in a range of industries — from mortgage to auto to commercial lending — gather to discuss the latest and greatest in securitization. During the conference, FICO also took the opportunity to survey these investors abou…

What is a financial goal that you would like to achieve? Attendees at FICO’s recent Score A Better Future events in St. Louis and Atlanta told us their goals range from starting a business, to owning a home to saving for retirement, to paying down debt. In fact, for many, these goals were key motivators for attending the events. In speaking further with the atte…

Last week, FICO kicked off its Score A Better Future program with a community event focused on credit education at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, MO. It was the first of our new series of free educational events across the country that bring together consumer advocates, credit educators and community leaders to help Americans learn about credit scores and…

How credit scores are generated and their role in the U.S. mortgage origination process can be a confusing topic. To help alleviate confusion, I want to take a moment to provide a high-level overview of the role credit scores have in the mortgage lending and automated underwriting process. This is particularly important for conforming mortgages or mortgages sold to go…

Americans who don’t have a FICO score present both an opportunity and a challenge for lenders. Lenders are keen to extend credit to consumers in new market segments, but need to ensure they’re making risk-aware decisions. Some lenders are asking can scoring trended data, or more accurately, trended credit bureau data, as some credit score companies claim, actually…

There has been much discussion and several studies over the years regarding the potential value of leveraging rental data in assessing consumer credit risk. Which raises the question: Should rental data be widely reported to the three primary consumer credit agencies (CRAs)? If rental data was reported, this might mean some consumers without loans or credit cards w…

Securitization plays a key role in driving increased liquidity in the mortgage market, ensuring that banks can fund more loans, at lower cost. This in turn gives consumers greater access to affordable mortgages. FICO Scores, of course, play an important role in the risk management and transparency that powers the secondary market. Now VantageScore is claiming that…

In the era of Big Data, so-called alternative data holds a special promise — to shine a new light on consumer behavior. When it comes to credit scoring, alternative data means data not being used today for risk assessment, and specifically data not found in the credit bureaus. Lenders hope scoring this data could allow them to make faster, better decisions on people w…

Participants and Influencers throughout the mortgage ecosystem have been told by the three main US credit bureaus through their jointly owned and controlled credit scoring firm, VantageScore, that the VantageScore can enable millions more consumers to gain access to a mortgage. It’s an appealing story — but is it true? Claim: Loosening credit scoring criteria will…

Access to credit and the path to homeownership are important parts of the American way of life. That’s why it’s critical to understand what can be done to improve financial inclusion — and what won’t work. For months now, the three main US consumer reporting agencies - through their VantageScore business - have been claiming that millions of credit-starved American…