The FICO scores used for mortgages
Equifax Beacon® 5.0
Experian®/Fair Isaac Risk Model V2SM
TransUnion FICO® Risk Score, Classic 04
These are sometimes listed on the tri-merge mortgage report as follows:
- Equifax/FICO classic V5 FACTA
- Experian/Fair Isaac (Ver. 2)
- Transunion/FICO Classic (04)
Note: they have been commonly referred to on the myFICO forums and elsewhere as:
- EQ 04 aka FICO 5 (on the myFICO report)
- EX 98 aka FICO 2 (on the myFICO report)
- TU 04 aka FICO 4 (on the myFICO report)
Some Differences from FICO 8
Availablility
Equifax: myFICO Equifax FICO Standard purchase, or FICO 3 Report View purchase. Equifax Score Power purchase. DCU provides this score monthly to it's membership
Experian: myFICO Experian FICO Standard purchase, or FICO 3 Report View purchase. PSECU provides this score monthly to it's membership. NASA FCU now also provides this score to it's membership and is open to everyone. This score is now purchasable via Experian as well as an "additional score" in their FICO 8 monitoring solution.
Transunion: myFICO Transunion FICO Standard purchase, or FICO 3 Report View purchase.
Updated 3/10/15 - addition of Transunion (yay!) and some clarifications
Updated 9/03/16 - addition of NASA FCU for EX mortgage score availability; linked forum post of differences between score versions
Updated 10/17/16 - forgot the MF interface names for the scores, sloppy on my part
Updated 1/9/17 - addition of Experian monitoring for mortgage score availability.
So would I just do the FICO Standard Purchase and select Equifax and Experian and that would show me the EQ Beacon 5.0 and Experian V2SM scores that mortgage lenders pull?
Just curious as the ones I get through banks listed in my sig are drastically different from the one a lender pulled - they said mine is 740 but wouldn't give me more information or show me the print out.
@iDShaDoW wrote:So would I just do the FICO Standard Purchase and select Equifax and Experian and that would show me the EQ Beacon 5.0 and Experian V2SM scores that mortgage lenders pull?
Just curious as the ones I get through banks listed in my sig are drastically different from the one a lender pulled - they said mine is 740 but wouldn't give me more information or show me the print out.
Yup, though the EX should match your PSECU monthly score; however, both Walmart and Penfed's scores are useless for mortgages.
Haha, funny; figured would post it here since there's been a bunch of discussion on FICO 8's being higher than FICO 04/98's.
2/27/15:
EQ Beacon 9.0 (FICO 8) = 685
EQ Beacon 5.0 (FICO 04 / mortgage score) = 693
Can't really explain it other than I am beginning to suspect installment lines are getting weighed differently, but needless to say I was shocked seeing that as traditionally my FICO 8's have always been non-trivially higher than FICO 04/98's and I'm pretty much a poster child of broken credit till finding this forum and getting clean since then but with a bunch of derogatories which haven't fallen off yet.
@Movin_on_up wrote:Revelate - Where are you seeing the FICO 04? I just pulled my 3-report view and am seeing the FICO Score 8 and FICO Score 5 in the Equifax score versions view.
Beacon 5.0 is Equifax's version of the FICO 04 algorithm. Not certain why myFICO decided to "simplify" the score names, in my estimation it only made it more confusing but the FICO Score 5 and my labelling of FICO 04 are identical as far as algorithms / scores, just different names for the same thing.