FNBO and FICO Expand Credit Transparency Program to Empower Consumers

FNBO’s Credit Watch: Providing Financial Insights and Transparency

For more than ten years, FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha), one of the largest privately held banks in the United States, has worked with analytic software leader FICO to provide FICO® Scores to its customers by participating in the FICO® Score Open Access program. This access creates and cultivates more financially aware, literate consumers by allowing them to receive their FICO Score directly on their online account or mobile app. Expanding on its success with FICO Score Open Access, FNBO introduced an enhanced and feature-rich consumer education program known as FNBO Credit Watch℠.

Through the FNBO Credit Watch℠ program, FNBO customers can receive their FICO® Score and view up to five positive and negative reporting factors that impact their FICO Score. These additional factors help educate customers and provide them the tools to make more informed credit decisions. Using this reporting, customers further understand the impacts of opening new lines of credit, paying down debt and paying bills on time. Since the launch of FNBO Credit Watch in June 2023, nearly 500,000 customers have joined the program in the first nine months. This accounts for 17% of FNBO’s online consumer credit card population who now have the tools for more financial transparency on their credit journey.

“The benefits the FICO Score Open Access and FNBO Credit Watch programs provide have been tremendous,” said Jerry O’Flanagan, executive vice president at FNBO. “The transparency has enabled our customers to be more in control of their everyday finances. This knowledge and empowerment transfers to other significant customer financial decisions, whether it is obtaining a home mortgage, starting a small business, or buying a car.”

You can read more about this story in the full media release. 

FNBO’s Credit Watch: Provides Real-Time Credit Alerts and Financial Reporting

With FNBO’s Credit Watch℠, real time credit inquiry alerts also help customers monitor their accounts by supporting early detection of identity theft and fraud. These reporting features support the company’s ongoing focus to encourage financial well-being and deepen relationships with customers.

"Over the past year, we've been focusing on what else we can bring to our customers, and we've done that by launching the FNBO credit watch tool," said Nicole Wojtalewic, vice president at FNBO. "This tool not only gives them their FICO score, but it gives so much more information that they can get right at their fingertips. It'll include their history, FICO score, ingredients, even education. By giving financial responsibility to our card holders and empowering them to do better, it allows us to even build more financially responsible customers long term."

FNBO's efforts in furthering credit transparency align with FICO's focus on financial literacy and empowerment. It is important for consumers to have access to their FICO Score, the credit score used by 90% of top U.S. lenders. 

For these achievements, FNBO won a 2024 FICO® Decisions Award for Financial Inclusion. 
 
“FNBO’s Credit Watch program is an impactful project that can help more Americans gain control of their financial health,” Nick Vitchev, director at Chartis Research and one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges. “The judges were impressed by FNBO’s commitment to expanding their financial education and credit transparency toolset to better serve their customers.”

To see the full list of this year’s FICO® Decision Awards winners, check out: https://www.fico.com/en/fico-decisions-awards-2024

With the enhanced content of the FICO Score consumer educational program, lenders like FNBO, are able to provide their customers with content beyond the standard program, such as additional FICO Score Factors and FICO Score Ingredients that provide a deeper insight and transparency into what is driving the consumers FICO Score.

How FICO Can Help You Educate Consumers About Credit

• Learn about how you can strengthen customer relationships and increase profitability with the FICO® Score Open Access program. FICO Score Open Access empowers you to report and share FICO® Scores you already use for account risk management decisions with your customers – with no additional score fees charged by FICO.
• Do you want to know how to more precisely predict a borrower’s resilience to future economic disruptions? Then your customer reporting should include insights from the FICO® Resilience Index.
• Watch this video content about CredEvolv and how they are using FICO® Score Open Access to give nonprofit housing counselors the tools and reporting they need to improve financial literacy for consumers.
• Watch this webinar content on "Emerging Credit Risk Trends & Growth Through Credit Score Transparency" to learn about FICO’s latest financial benchmarking reports that include important consumer resilience insights and trends.