Fair Isaac

FICO (legal name: Fair Isaac Corporation), originally Fair, Isaac and Company, is a data analytics company based in Bozeman, Montana, 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. The company reported a revenue of $1.29 billion dollars for the fiscal year of 2020.

History

FICO was founded in 1956 as Fair, Isaac and Company by engineer William R. "Bill" Fair and mathematician Earl Judson Isaac. The two 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,About Us  FICO
nbsp;— FICO official Web site 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.

Headquarters moves

Originally based in San Rafael, California, FICO moved its headquarters to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2004, a few years after Minnesota resident Thomas Grudnowski took over as CEO. In 2013, it moved its headquarters to San Jose, California, a year after CEO William Lansing joined. In 2016 it opened an office in Bozeman, Montana which later became its headquarters.

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
*GoOn 2018
*EZMCOM 2019

Operations

FICO is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana and it has additional U.S. locations in San Jose, California; Roseville, Minnesota; San Diego; San Rafael, California; Fairfax, Virginia; and Austin, Texas.

The company has international locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, 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.Credit Reporting Agencies
nbsp;— FICO official Web site FICO scores are also offered in other markets, including Mexico and Canada, as well as through the fourth U.S. credit reporting bureau, PRBC.Fair Isaac and PRBC Team Up to Enhance Credit Risk Tools Used by Mortgage Industry
nbsp;— FICO official Web site

References

External links

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How Does FICO Calculate a Score?

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fico
Business intelligence companies
Business software companies
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Data mining and machine learning software
Data visualization software
Financial services companies based in California
Companies based in San Jose, California
Financial technology companies
Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Software companies based in Montana
American companies established in 1956
Business services companies established in 1956
Financial services companies established in 1956
Computer companies established in 1956
Credit scoring
1956 establishments in California
1980s initial public offerings
Software companies of the United States
Bozeman, Montana