The scores most often used in lending decisions were introduced by the Fair Isaac Corp more than 25 years ago and are known as FICO scores. However, one of the biggest reasons there are multiple FICO scores is because lenders assess borrowers differently, depending on the loan product. For example, a lender considering you for an auto loan will be much more interested in your history of auto loan payments than a lender considering you for a personal loan. FICO has different models tailored to the loan product the consumer applies for. On top of that, FICO creates custom scores for its clients, and FICO has updated its general formulas over the years. In addition to FICO, the company Vantage Score offers credit scores, each of the three major credit bureaus Experian,Equifax and Transunion offer their own credit scores, and a number of other companies have credit scores, too. There are also a number of “educational” credit scores that banks do not use, but instead are intended for regular people to use to get a better sense of their creditworthiness such as most credit monitoring sites that offer monthly or daily updated credit reports. Because these scores are not intended for use in lender decisions, they are often thought of as “FAKO” scores
