Did you know that there’s now another score, aside from the Fico Score, that could increase your chances of getting your loan application approved if you currently have little or no credit? It is called the Fico Expansion Score and is the result of a partnership between the Fico Corporation and the Payment Reporting Builds Credit (PRBC) company in Annapolis, Maryland.
First, a little backgrounder. The PBRC is a credit bureau that began in 2002 under the name Pay Rent, Build Credit, Inc. The company was formed to enable consumers with little or no credit history to build one by gathering information from alternative data that are not traditionally reported to the big three credit agencies. These alternative data include information on payments for bills such as telecom, rent, mortgage, utilities, child care, and insurance.
Currently, the Big Three do not include payment information in your credit report if you pay on time for the following bills: daycare, rent, insurance, cable, phone, cell phone, electricity, and natural gas. They will, however, include the information only if you were late in payment. So even if you’ve had a very good history of timely payments on these bills, it’s not going to help improve your credit reports and scores with TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax.
The PBRC has its own credit report, called the PBRC Report, which is based on consumers’ bills payment history. The information in this report is collated from information submitted by bill payment services such as banks, specialty bills payment processors, and credit unions; and by creditors and service providers. In 2008, PBRC teamed up with Fair Isaac to deliver the Fico Expansion Score with the PBRC Reports. The information from PBRC’s reports will be added to the Fico Expansion Score, which will be based on three kinds of data:
- Bills and rental payment data from PBRC
- Non-traditional credit history data from third party sources, and
- Traditional credit data from the big three credit bureaus, when available.
According to Fair Isaac, the Fico Expansion Score is part of the Fico family of credit scores and provides the same accuracy. Fico’s aim in creating this score is to help consumers with little or no credit gain access to traditional credit products such as car loans, credit cards, and home loans by evaluating credit data and financial relationships that are not currently found in the credit bureau reports.
While the PBRC Report with the Fico Expansion Score is not directly available to consumers, it is to lenders. So if you have very little or a non-existent credit history and need to apply for a loan, you can ask your lender to pull your PBRC Report with the Fico Expansion Score. This will not guarantee that your loan application will be approved, but it will be a big help.
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