FICO WEIGHT FACTORS
Fair Isaac Company (FICO) “scores” credit reports for lenders. The score is based on the contents of your credit report. The factors that FICO uses in their scoring model of your credit report are listed below.
PAYMENT HISTORY 35% WEIGHT
“Pay your bills on time as promised”
35% of your credit score is based on your payment history. This is the largest determinant of your credit score. The things that the model looks at are:
- Account payment information on specific types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, finance company accounts, mortgage, etc.)
- Presence of adverse public records (bankruptcy, judgments, suits, liens, wage attachments, etc.), collection items, and/or delinquency (past due items)
- Severity of delinquency (how long past due)
- Amount past due on delinquent accounts or collection items
- Time since (recency of) past due items (delinquency), adverse public records (if any), or collection items (if any)
- Number of past due items on file
- Number of accounts paid as agreed
AMOUNT OF CREDIT OWING – 30% WEIGHT
“Use no more than 30% of credit limit”
- Amount owing on accounts
- Amount owing on specific types of accounts
- Lack of a specific type of balance, in some cases
- Number of accounts with balances
- Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)
- Proportion of installment loan amounts still owing (proportion of balance to original loan amount on certain types of installment loans)
LENGTH OF TIME CREDIT ESTABLISHED – 15% WEIGHT
“Don’t open new accounts or close old ones”
- Time since accounts opened
- Time since accounts opened, by specific type of account
- Time since account activity
SEARCH FOR AND ACQUISITION OF NEW CREDIT – 10% WEIGHT
“You don’t want to be looking for new credit”
- Number of recently opened accounts, and proportion of accounts that are recently opened, by type of account
- Number of recent credit inquiries
- Time since recent account opening(s), by type of account
- Time since credit inquiry(s)
- Re-establishment of positive credit history following past payment problem
TYPES OF CREDIT ESTABLISHED—10% WEIGHT
“Consolidating into a personal loan may help”
Number of (presence, prevalence and recent information on) various types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, mortgages, consumer finance accounts, ect.)
