Fair Isaac Corp. confirmed Wednesday that it is indeed raising its prices for mortgage credit scores going into the new year.
Jim Wehmann, executive vice president of scores at FICO, wrote in a company blog that FICO's wholesale royalty will be $4.95 per score for mortgage originations in 2025.
The price hike
Wehmann's statement said the company chose to communicate in a public way because of a "substantial amount of misinformation and confusion around FICO's role in the mortgage industry."
He underscored how minimal this cost is in overall mortgage closing costs and the massive value it provides market participants in mortgage finance.
"At this new per-score royalty, the amount collected by FICO will remain a small percentage of the cost of the tri-merge credit report and score bundle (on average approximately 15% of the $80 to well over $100 tri-merge bundle cost), which is itself an exceedingly small share of overall mortgage closing costs," Wehmann wrote in the company's blog.
"Both before and after our new per-score royalty, the royalties collected by FICO are fair and reasonable, and continue to be the lowest of all individual mortgage closing costs," he added. FICO estimates that all-in-all closing costs amount to about $6,000.
These comments echo previous statements by FICO's CEO Will Lansing. In the company's third quarter earnings call, Lansing foreshadowed the upcoming hike and many more to come.
"What we charge for the FICO score is so much less than the value that we provide…" Lansing said. "Our thought process is that over time, we're going to close some of that gap."
Mortgage industry stakeholders lamented the announced price change.
The Community Home Lenders of America called it a "slap in the face to consumers," which further "raises the cost of a mortgage despite a public outcry over FICO's
"It is further proof that FICO is a monopoly, pure and simple, with no accountability - and a sign that FICO will continue to gouge consumers unless federal officials or Congress takes action to rein them in," the trade group wrote in an email Wednesday.
Bob Broeksmit, the president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said the trade group
is "deeply frustrated by the annual price hikes for tri-merge credit reports and other credit reporting products."
"Lenders are required by the government to obtain FICO scores and three credit reports to make most loans," he wrote in a statement. "It is troubling that these providers have the audacity to use their oligopoly powers to raise prices at many times the pace of inflation during this time of constrained housing affordability."
The MBA president also called on "federal housing regulators, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, to examine the role the government's requirements play in driving up these consumer credit transaction costs."
Others reacted on public forums like Linkedin.
Greg Sher, managing director at NFM Lending, wrote in a post that FICO "is not going to stop until somebody gets in their way, or until other options are presented."
"We [the mortgage community] are the only shot we have to shine a light bright enough to force change. It's not going to come from the Mortgage Bankers Association. For them, FICO is a member too," Sher wrote. "With a new administration in line to take over the White House that fancies less regulation, the road ahead when it comes to FICO price increases just got even more ominous."
David Lykken, a mortgage industry vet, responded to Sher's post noting how "absurd [it is] for a major industry partner like FICO to raise costs at a time [when] we need to be reducing costs to consumers."
FICO and its price changes are on the radar of politicians, though it remains uncertain what impact this will have.
In mid-October a group of 34 Senate and House members called on the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to investigate FICO's alleged anti-competitive behavior.
"The DOJ should investigate whether FICO and others are engaging in behavior that violates federal antitrust law," members of Congress wrote to the Biden Administration. "And the CFPB should explore potential remedies to exploding credit reporting costs, including a cap on fees that credit reporting agencies can charge and interoperability requirements that would allow consumers to move their credit scores without new fees."
