What is FICO 08 actually used for?

[nycfico]

So, Fico 02 is used for mortgage lending.  Fico Auto Score 08 is used for car loans.  Fico Bankcard 08 is used for credit cards.

It says that Fico 08 is the most widely used score.  For what?  What is Fico 08 used for?

[Anonymous]

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@nycfico wrote:

So, Fico 02 is used for mortgage lending.  Fico Auto Score 08 is used for car loans.  Fico Bankcard 08 is used for credit cards.

It says that Fico 08 is the most widely used score.  For what?  What is Fico 08 used for?

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There's a difference between "intended use" and "actual use". Yes, Fico 2 (and FICO 4, and Beacon 5) is used by a vast majority of mortgage lenders. FICO Auto score 8 is INTENDED for Auto lenders, but many simply use the "standard" FICO 8, and the same goes for FICO Bankcard 8 - some banks use it, but many stay with the standard FICO 8.

FICO 8 is sort of a "general purpose" score. The others are intended to be more predictive of certain lending categories, but the truth is that most lenders find the standard score sufficient for their purposes - or they simply don't believe Fair Isaac's hype concerning the accuracy of the targeted models. I'm sure using multiple scoring models would entail multiple "payments" to Fair Isaac as well, so there's probably a "cheapness" factor at work here too...

[jamie123]

It is my understanding that FICO 08 is used for UNSECURED loans like credit cards and that FICO mortgage and auto scores are used for mortgages and auto loans because those loans have an underlying collateral.

[Anonymous]

Just curious Jamie, does your reasoning/understanding shed any light as to why you think FICO 08 is used for credit cards rather than the FICO Bank Card Score 8 which obviously is designed for "unsecured"?

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Just curious Jamie, does your reasoning/understanding shed any light as to why you think FICO 08 is used for credit cards rather than the FICO Bank Card Score 8 which obviously is designed for "unsecured"?

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Pretty much every score provided under the FICO Open Access program is FICO 8 baseline, other than Citi, Merrick, and I believe FBNO which provides FICO 8 BC industry option.  Oh Penfed and their archaic NextGen v2 score

Admittedly lenders can and do pull multiple scores, but this is what they're evaluating all their accounts on post approval and it's reasonable that's their go-to UW score as well.  This includes Amex, Chase (which does UW some Freedom apps historicaly on VS), Barclay's, Discover.

[Anonymous]

So, is your point that:  Since the Open Access Program divulges the score used by lenders to make decisions, and pretty much every score divulged is the FICO 8 baseline, then the FICO 8 baseline is the sore that is actually used to evaluate nearly all applications?

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So, is your point that:  Since the Open Access Program divulges the score used by lenders to make decisions, and pretty much every score divulged is the FICO 8 baseline, then the FICO 8 baseline is the sore that is actually used to evaluate nearly all applications?

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Yes.

[Anonymous]

Good to know, thanks for the info.