The term FICO score and credit score frequently interchanged by a lot of people. Given the existence of three main credit bureaus; Equifax, TransUnion and Experian a total of three scores exist, with only one being selected as the credit score.
FICO on the other hand stands for Fair Isaac Corporation. They introduced the scoring formula to the credit market with the aim to come up with a uniform way to measure data in credit reports by assigning a grade to the information.
Roughly 70% of all lending institutions including mortgage companies, banks and credit card companies rely on the Fair Issac Corporation version to qualify there applicants. Most mortgage lenders stick with this version when making decision on home approvals. But chances are that a lender that you approach for a loan is using your Fair Issac score to qualify you as opposed to your in-house credit score.
Each of the bureaus have business arrangement with Fair Issac Corporation to provide a version of the scoring model for their services thereby enabling them have individual, unique versions of your credit report.
For example, when you compare your score in the three credit bureaus, Equifax could be 640, TransUnion 675 and Experian 625. When you decide to pull your credit scores online make sure you are receiving your Fair Issac version and not any other, mainly due to the fact that this will be the one that best represents your credit worthiness in the marketplace. Just about all home lenders will use your FICO to grade the terms on your mortgage loan.
