What is a credit score, what is a FICO score?
FICO (pronounced ‘fye-ko’) stands for Fair, Isaac and Company. Each of the three credit bureaus ( Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion ) takes your entire credit history and “boils it down” to one number, your FICO score. These scores are calculated using algorithms from Fair, Isaac & Co. and each bureau figures them slightly differently. As a result, you end up with three scores, one from each credit bureau. The exact methods of these calculations, the bureaus say, are company secrets. Of your three credit scores, most lenders look just at the middle number. So, if your scores are 710, 690, and 645 your credit score for mortgage purposes is 690.
