Will Lansing’s letter, “Our FICO Score 10T Predicts Your Credit Best”, (Letters, Mar. 2) falsely claims to be grounded in fact but neglects to provide any evidence. The facts actually show that VantageScore 4.0 is more predictive than FICO Classic. FICO’s claims of FICO 10T superiority are also vaporware, and this is why FICO has chosen not to publish, and keep secret, any large-scale FICO 10T data sets.
Why won’t FICO make the FICO10T data public? Is that the behavior of a company that supports innovation and competition?
FICO does admit that the FICO Classic score is inferior to VantageScore 4.0 because FICO Classic is “more than 30 years old.” Yet FICO Classic is still in use by Fannie and Freddie Mac. That is precisely why VantageScore 4.0 was accepted by the FHFA in July 2025 as a competitor to FICO Classic.
FICO blames banks that used its score for the 2008 mortgage crisis, rather than taking accountability for their own failures. If FICO doesn’t take accountability for its problems in the past, how can lenders trust it as a credit score in the future?
Multiple industry participants have privately confirmed that VantageScore 4.0 is more predictive than FICO 10T. Those findings reflect real-world loans and operational environments, not vague and unsubstantiated theoretical assertions. We urge FICO to back its assertions by publicly releasing its 10T dataset so the marketplace can be the judge. If they don’t, it is clear that FICO’s assertions are just vaporware.
Silvio Tavares, President and CEO
