What is FICO score ?

What is FICO score ?
Ever wonder what a FICO score stands for? Obviously, this
is a credit score, but who determines what that score will
be, and what does FICO mean? By taking learning more about
the Fair Isaac Corporation, some of these questions can be
answered.

In 1956, and engineer by the name of Bill Fair and a
mathematician known as Earl Isaac founded the Fair Isaac
Corp., or FICO. FICO originally provided consulting and
decision management services, but in 1981 they developed a
system for scoring the amount of risk associated with
making certain loans and investments. The FICO score is a
number generated from an individual's credit history. By
statistically analyzing this report, the FICO system
assigns a value to the likelihood that an individual will
pay their debts. This value is noted by banks and other
lending institutions when determining the interest rates
and other characteristics of a loan, helping them to make
accurate and profitable lending decisions.

So is FICO a credit bureau? The answer is yes and no. It
seems we have all heard of the credit bureaus that gather
information about our debts and assign us credit scores. In
actuality, they are not credit bureaus at all. FICO and the
other similar companies are not associated with the
government but are in fact publicly traded companies known
as credit reporting agencies. Out of these companies such
as Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, FICO is the most
known and widely used credit-scoring agency in the United
States.

The Fair Isaac Corporation is headquartered in Minneapolis,
Minnesota but has offices throughout five of the 7 major
continents and turns a revenue of over $800 million dollar
per year. Beyond producing credit scores, their over 3,500
employees provide consulting and management services to
more than 200 international retailers, 99 of the top 100 US
banks, and over 100 international telecommunications
companies. FICO has become a cornerstone for the entire
American economy.

Getting your fico score is easy. You can buy your score
directly from FICO or you can receive a free credit score
report from various online providers. Once you know your
score, you can quickly assess what kinds of lending options
might be available. A score of 720 or higher is considered
worthy credit, or good credit, while anything that drops
below a 600 is considered bad credit. With bad credit you
will pay more in interest on loans and have more difficult
qualifying for certain loan packages. There are many things
you can do to improve your score, but the best one is to
simply pay you debts.

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http://www.my720fico.com is the leading resource on the web
for credit reports and credit scores. We should know since
we are lenders.