3 Reasons Your FICO Credit Score, Despite The Abuse, Still Matters A Lot

FICO is a pioneer of credit scoring. Founded in 1956, it introduced the first credit bureau risk score in 1981. Today, “FICO” has become synonymous with credit scores in the same way that “Kleenex” is synonymous with tissues. However, FICO has been under attack in the last few years. In particular:
The three credit reporting agencies have created VantageScore, a competing generic credit score that has become widely available. If you get your credit score for free from a website like CreditKarma, you are looking at your VantageScore.
FinTech start-ups have been trying to create alternative credit scores, and some marketplace lenders, like SoFi, have stopped using FICO completely.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been very focused on the 26 million “credit invisibles” and the additional 19 million “unscorables” who do not have a FICO. Given the inability of people without credit scores to access affordable credit, the CFPB has been focused on finding ways to integrate people without scores into mainstream financial products.