FICO, originally Fair, Isaac and Company, is a data analytics company based in San Jose, California focused on credit scoring services. It was founded by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac in 1956. Its FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk, has become a fixture of consumer lending in the United States.
In 2013, lenders purchased more than 10 billion FICO scores and about 30 million American consumers accessed their scores themselves.
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History
FICO was founded in 1956 as Fair, Isaac and Company by engineer William Fair and mathematician Earl Isaac. The two had met while working at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California. Selling its first credit scoring system two years after the company's creation, FICO pitched its system to fifty American lenders.
FICO went public in 1986 and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company debuted its first general-purpose FICO score in 1989. FICO scores are based on credit reports and "base" FICO scores range from 300 to 850, while industry-specific scores range from 250 to 900.
Lenders use the scores to gauge a potential borrower's creditworthiness.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac first began using FICO scores to help determine which American consumers qualified for mortgages bought and sold by the companies in 1995.
Name changes
Originally called Fair, Isaac and Company (hence the abbreviation FICO), this name was changed to Fair Isaac Corporation in 2003. The company renamed itself FICO in 2009.
Headquarters moves
Originally based in San Rafael, California, FICO moved its headquarters to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2004. In 2013, it moved back to California and is currently sited in San Jose, California.
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Acquisitions
- DynaMark 1992
- Risk Management Technologies 1997
- Prevision 1997
- Nykamp Consulting Group 2001
- HNC Software 2002
- NAREX 2003
- Diversified Healthcare Services 2003
- Seurat (2003)
- London Bridge Software 2004
- Braun Consulting 2004
- RulesPower 2005
- Dash Optimization 2008
- Entiera 2012
- Adeptra 2012
- CR Software 2012
- Infoglide 2013
- InfoCentricity 2014
- Karmasphere 2014
- TONBELLER AG 2015
- QuadMetrics 2016
Operations
FICO is headquartered in San Jose, California and has additional US locations in Roseville, Minnesota; San Diego; San Rafael, California; Fairfax, Virginia; New York City and Austin, Texas.
The company has international office locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
FICO score
A measure of credit risk, FICO scores are available through all of the major consumer reporting agencies in the United States: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. FICO scores are also offered in other markets, including Mexico and Canada, as well as through the fourth US credit reporting bureau, PRBC.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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