Will the Fiscal Cliff Impact your FICO Score?

December 6, 2012 By 1 Comment
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Right now, everyone is talking about the “fiscal cliff” - the potential crisis that will occur if our elected lawmakers are unable to extend tax cuts and avert millions of dollars in spending cuts that will take effect in the New Year.   As the deadline approaches, you may be wondering what impact, if any, would the fiscal cliff have on your FICO Score?   The good news is that there is no direct effect on the score associated with the main factors driving the potential fiscal cliff.  Your income and the amount of taxes you pay are not considered in the calculation of your FICO Score.   However, the failure to extend the tax cuts and/or avert spending cuts could have a negative indirect effect on credit scores.  Most experts agree that just about every … [Read more...]

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FICO Scores Reveal Slow Economic Recovery

September 19, 2012 By 1 Comment
FICO Scores Reflect Slow Economic Recovery

Our FICO Labs team has taken a fresh look at national distribution of FICO Scores. With a couple of interesting exceptions, we found that consumer scores are continuing their slow return to a pre-recession pattern.       The first two years of the recession (2008-2009) moved the scores for millions of people into the lowest (300-499) and the highest (800-850) segments of the FICO Score range. Correspondingly fewer people had scores in the middle range (600-749). In an earlier post, I explained why these separate shifts happened.   This flattening of the distribution curve peaked in 2009-2010 and has since slowly been reversing. However, the latest numbers suggest two unusual patterns in this recovery. First, the quantity of people with very low … [Read more...]

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