FICO® Scores Now Provided Free with 150 Million Consumer Financial Accounts Through FICO® Score Open Access Program

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

• FICO celebrates National Financial Literacy Month with expansion of program that enables millions of consumers to see FICO^® Scores used by their lenders.
• FICO^® Score Open Access offers unprecedented transparency in credit scoring to educate, inform and empower consumers.

To celebrate National Financial Literacy Month, analytics software firm FICO (NYSE:FICO) today announced that its FICO^® Score Open Access program has surpassed a major milestone in consumer financial empowerment – more than 150 million consumer credit and loan accounts in the US now include free access to the FICO^® Scores used by lenders to manage those accounts. Wells Fargo and Bank of America are participating in the program, which includes credit card issuers, mortgage servicers, auto lenders, and student loan providers.

"FICO Score Open Access is a giant step forward in consumer empowerment," said Jim Wehmann, executive vice president, Scores, at FICO. "Our program provides billions of FICO Scores each year to consumers, helping them see how lenders view their creditworthiness and providing information that enables them to better understand their financial health."

FICO^® Score Open Access provides consumers with regularly updated FICO^® Scores. These are the actual scores the lenders are using to manage their consumer accounts. The scores are accompanied by the two most important factors affecting the score. Participating institutions are delivering the scores to consumers via a variety of channels, including online banking websites, mobile apps and paper statements.

"FICO Scores are used in over 90 percent of consumer lending decisions in the US," said Wehmann. "There are 19 versions of the FICO Score that account for 95 percent of all FICO Scores used in the US. The only way consumers can truly understand how lenders view them is to see the FICO Scores used by lenders. Everything else is just an approximation, and often a very poor approximation. FICO Score Open Access is a big win for consumers, particularly those who are targeted by confusing marketing schemes that offer imitation credit scores."

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 165 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time. Learn more at http://www.fico.com.

For FICO news and media resources, visit www.fico.com/news.

FICO is a trademark or registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the United States and in other countries.

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SOURCE FICO

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