4 ms·
The challenge would be that there isn't just one "credit score". The scores published by bureau's exist more for marketing and as a stick to improve consumer be
by scarab92 2y ago
The challenge would be that there isn't just one "credit score". The scores published by bureau's exist more for marketing and as a stick to improve consumer behaviour.
A credit bureau's real product is the credit file, which contains your history of inquiries, defaults, collections, court judgements etc. In some countries it also includes granular payment history information.
From this file, many lenders compute their own internal credit scores. They do this because the credit scores published by the bureaus are the likelihood to default on any loan, however in practice consumers are often more likely to default on certain types of debt than others. Also, many lenders have additional data points that can be considered which the bureau's don't capture, such as the structure of the loan.
If there's anything questionable going on (e.g. using variables which act as proxies for factors prohibited by ECOA or FHA) it will be occuring in these proprietary lender-specific models, however the parameters used in these models also embed commercial sensitive information about the behaviour of their customer base, so I doubt many lenders will be keen to release them.