VantageScore

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VantageScore is the name of a credit rating product that is offered by the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). The product was unveiled by the three bureaus on March 14, 2006. The VantageScore is essentially an attempt to compete with the FICO Score produced by Fair Isaac.

1 VantageScore vs. FICO Score
2 What Factors Contribute to the Score?
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

VantageScore vs. FICO Score

Both Fair Isaac and VantageScore have allowed the public to know some information about the Credit score categories and the corresponding calculation weights^[1]. All three bureaus use the same formula to calculate the VantageScore; however, there are still discrepancies between the resulting scores if run for each of the credit reports. This is due to different data the three bureaus have on the credit reports. Fair Isaac, the original creator of the FICO Score, was not involved with the creation of VantageScore's new formula.^[2]

The three bureaus have advertised the VantageScore as something that will help banks and lenders further drill down into the "subprime" categories.^{[citation needed]} Subprime lenders are those banks/lenders dedicated to borrowers with less than perfect credit or harder to substantiate credit.

Unlike FICO’s traditional 300 to 850 scale, the VantageScore goes from 501 to 990, as reported by TransUnion:

A: 901–990

B: 801–900

C: 701–800

D: 601–700

F: 501–600

A person's VantageScore may not be exactly the same from each credit bureau, because the data each credit bureau collects may still vary. However, in theory, the VantageScore should be more consistent across all three credit bureaus because the same calculation formula is used.

TransUnion and Experian offer the score to the public via their websites. Experian offers consumers their VantageScore through a special subdomain off its main site.^[3]

What Factors Contribute to the Score?

While the exact details of how the score is calculated are unknown, VantageScore has released the categories and proportions used.^[4] What contributes to a positive score in each category, and to what degree particular data affect the score, is unknown. It should be noted, however, that the score is meant to determine how likely a given customer will pay the loan back on time and in a consistent manner, so values which show behavior contrary to these are more likely to affect the score negatively and vice versa.

Payment History (i.e. how timely and consistent your payments are)
Credit Utilization (i.e. debt-to-credit ratios and how much credit is available)
Credit Balances (i.e. what your total debt is; most likely, delinquent debt is counted more harshly than current debt)
Depth of Credit (i.e. length of credit history.)
Recent Credit (i.e. how recent and many new hard inquiries and new accounts there are)
Available Credit (i.e. how much credit can be accessed, for example, could you spend $50,000 of credit tonight or within the next week).