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.[2] Its
FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk,[3] 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.[4] The company reported a revenue of $1.29 billion dollars for the fiscal year of 2020.[5]
History
FICO was founded in 1956 as Fair, Isaac and Company by engineer William R. "Bill" Fair and mathematician
Earl Judson Isaac.[6] The two met while working at the
Stanford Research Institute in
Menlo Park, California.[7] Selling its first credit scoring system two years after the company's creation,[8] FICO pitched its system to fifty American
lenders.[9]
FICO went
public in July 1987[10] and is traded on the
New York Stock Exchange.[6] The company debuted its first general-purpose FICO score in 1989.[3] FICO scores are based on credit reports and "base" FICO scores range from 300 to 850,[3] while industry-specific scores range from 250 to 900.[11]
Lenders use the scores to gauge a potential borrower's creditworthiness.[12]
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.[13]
Name changes
Originally called Fair, Isaac and Company (hence the abbreviation FICO), this name was changed to Fair Isaac Corporation in 2003.[8]
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.[14] In 2013, it moved its headquarters to San Jose, California, a year after CEO William Lansing joined.[15] In 2016 it opened an office in Bozeman, Montana which later became its headquarters.[16]