Fair Isaac Corp., the company that developed the credit FICO scoring system, announced that it will restore authorized user credit accounts to the calculation of FICO® 08 credit scores while materially reducing any potential impact to the score from tampering.
Fair Isaac estimates that more than 50 million U.S. consumers are legitimate authorized users on another person’s credit card.
"The hallmarks of FICO scores have been quality and innovation, and this technology advance is a great example," said Lisa Nelson, vice president of Global Scoring for Fair Isaac. "This breakthrough resolves an industry problem that we know has perplexed lenders and concerned regulators. We have developed technology that will reduce any impact on the FICO 08 score from intentional tampering, while allowing the scores of spouses and other genuine authorized users to benefit from their shared credit experience."
Updating consumers’ credit scores to include authorized account users is expected to take several weeks. So if you haven’t done your free yearly credit report, you should probably wait a little while so you can get the most up-to-date FICO score. Fair Isaac’s FICO score is used by most lenders to determine if you can get an auto loan, and at what interest rate.
