Dear Liz: I have three financial providers that supply regular, free credit scores: my bank and two credit card issuers. My credit score from the bank is always a “perfect score” while the two card companies are consistently 17 points lower, both exactly the same for two years now. I always pay off most or all of the outstanding balance on time or early. Any clue as to why there is this consistent difference?
Answer: The companies probably are using different credit scoring formulas or different credit bureaus, or both.
You don’t have one credit score. You have many. FICO is the dominant scoring formula, but lenders also use VantageScores and the credit bureaus sometimes provide their own, proprietary scores.
The formulas have been updated over the years. The FICO 8 is the most commonly used score, but the FICO 9 is the latest version and FICO 10 will be introduced this summer. Some scoring formulas are modified to suit different industries, such as auto lending or credit cards, plus each score is calculated from data at one of the three credit bureaus.
So one institution may provide its customers a FICO Score 9 from Experian, another might offer a FICO 8 Bankcard score from Equifax and a third might give you a VantageScore 3.0 from TransUnion. Even if all three were using the same type of score, they probably would use different credit bureaus, or vice versa. To make things even more confusing, your credit scores are constantly changing as your credit bureau information changes.
Furthermore, you typically can’t predict which score or scores a lender will use to evaluate your application for credit. Rather than worry about which number is “right” — they all are — use the free scores as a general indicator of your credit health.
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