Policy Makers & VantageScore

Advancing Credit Policy for Fair Lending Opportunities

As an industry leader, VantageScore advances innovation and collaborates on public policy to provide much needed reform in credit-score model development. We take time to find common ground to support an agenda that serves consumers, lenders, and the financial market as a whole.

Financial Inclusion

By providing a fair and accurate credit score to a broader population, VantageScore creates opportunities for lenders to extend credit safely and soundly to consumers historically underserved by legacy processes.

All VantageScore credit-scoring models score more than conventional credit-scoring models by using new data analytics technologies to generate predictive scores for consumers commonly left without a conventional credit score.


Dormant
Infrequent credit use; consumers who haven't had updates to their credit files in the past 6 months but have earlier updates.
Conventional Models
VantageScore 4.0

No Credit Accounts
Consumers who have no credit accounts (also called tradelines), but do have external collections and public records on their file.
Conventional Models
VantageScore 4.0

Young File
Consumers with a short credit history (also called young to credit); consumers who only have credit accounts (tradelines) that are less than 6 months old.
Conventional Models
VantageScore 4.0
Inclusion360® for Policy Makers

VantageScore research shows that in addition to underserved borrowers, there is an increased percentage of newly scorables in:

  • Lower income populations
  • Communities with low home-ownership rates
  • Communities with limited access to brick-and-mortar banking services

VantageScore identified over 869 newly lendable borrowers with credit scores > 620 in Texas alone.

How many consumers lack conventional scores in your home state?

Visit Inclusion360 to find out
How VantageScore Has Historically Treated Medical Debt and Collections:

VantageScore eliminated all paid collections, including all medical collection accounts, in 2013 with the introduction of VantageScore 3.0.

All VantageScore models ignore medical debt when it is reported by a medical facility.

While the specific score impact with vary and depend on a person's particular credit profile, VantageScore 4.0's treatment can lessen a medical collection account's impact by up to approximately 24 points.

Credit Report Errors
Are errors in people's credit reports causing them difficulties accessing credit?
Criticism

The CFPB has received some 800,000 credit or credit reporting complaints. Their data also indicates that disputes with the credit reporting industry are more common among those in underserved neighborhoods.

Sources: Consumerfinance.gov, January 5, 2022, Washington Post, January 7, 2022
Counterpoint

The Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents the credit reporting companies points to credit-repair firms as a major contributor to the issue, saying that, “The CFPB report highlights trends including increased activity by certain credit-repair companies, which can inflate complaint numbers and undermine the process of addressing legitimate requests.”

Sources: CDIA, January 5, 2022
Curated Resources
white paper

Credit Scoring and Financial Inclusion whitepaper

July 2023
white paper

Credit Invisible No Longer whitepaper

March 2022
white paper

Advantage of Adding Rent and Utility Data whitepaper

February 2022

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