FICO

Not to be confused with The Financing Corporation, a mixed-ownership government financing vehicle for the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.
FICO
Public company
Traded as NYSE: FICO
Industry Computer
Founded 1956
Headquarters San Jose, California
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Lansing, CEO[1]
Bill Fair, co-founder
Earl Isaac, co-founder
Products FICO Score
Services Computer Software
Revenue Increase US$ 788.99 million (2014)
Increase US$ 94.88 million (2014)
Total assets Increase US$ 1.192 billion (2014)
Number of employees
 2,646 (2014)
Website www.fico.com

FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a Software company based in San Jose, California and founded by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac in 1956. Its FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk,[2] 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.[3]

History

FICO was founded in 1956 as Fair, Isaac and Company by engineer William Fair and mathematician Earl Isaac.[4] The two had met while working at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.[5] Selling its first credit scoring system two years after the company's creation,[6] FICO pitched its system to fifty American lenders.[7]

FICO went public in 1986 and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.[4] The company debuted its first general-purpose FICO score in 1989.[2] Scores are based on credit reports and range from 300 to 850.[2] Lenders use the scores to gauge a potential borrower's creditworthiness.[8]

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.

Name changes

Originally called Fair, Isaac and Company, this name was changed to Fair Isaac Corporation in 2003.[6] The company rebranded again in 2009, and is now called FICO.[9]

Headquarters moves

Originally based in San Rafael, California, FICO moved its headquarters to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2004.[10] In 2013, it moved back to California and is currently sited in San Jose, California.[11]

Acquisitions

Operations

FICO is headquartered in San Jose, California and has additional US locations in Roseville, Minnesota, San Diego, San Rafael, California, Fairfax, Virginia, New York City and Austin, Texas.[28]

The company has international office locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom.[28]

FICO score

A measure of credit risk, FICO scores are available through all of the major consumer reporting agencies in the United States and Canada: Equifax;[29] Experian;[29] TransUnion;[29] PRBC.[30]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "FICO shuffles executive ranks under new CEO". Twin Cities Business. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ann Carrns (10 May 2012). "Is That Credit Score a FICO, or a FICO 8?". New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  3. ↑ Evan Nemeroff (7 March 2014). "New FICO Scoring Model Coming This Summer". National Mortgage News. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dean Foust; Aaron Pressman (2008-02-06). "Credit Scores: Not-So-Magic Numbers". Retrieved 2014-11-02.
  5. ↑ Jennifer Bjorhus (2013-01-04). "Fair Isaac moving its HQ back to California". Retrieved 2014-11-02.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 History FICO Official Site
  7. ↑ Adriene Hill (2014-04-22). "A brief history of the credit score". Retrieved 2014-11-02.
  8. ↑ Ann Carrns (2012-05-03). "Report Finds Improvement in Credit Scores". Retrieved 2014-11-02.
  9. ↑ FICO Unveils New Ticker Symbol on New York Stock Exchange FICO Official Site
  10. ↑ Dan Fost (11 May 2004). "Fair Isaac moving its hub / Most company executives already set up in Minnesota". SFGate. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  11. ↑ Pete Carey (4 January 2013). "FICO moves headquarters to San Jose". Mercury News. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "RMT Merges with Fair, Isaac". July 1997. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  13. ↑ "Fair, Isaac to acquire Nykamp Consulting". 2001-12-12. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  14. ↑ "Fair Isaac merging with HNC Software". 2002-04-30.
  15. ↑ "Narex sold for $10M". 2003-07-28. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  16. ↑ "Fair Isaac Acquires Diversified HealthCare". 2003-09-19. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  17. ↑ "California firm buys Seurat". 2003-10-06. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  18. ↑ "Fair Issac offers $166m for London Bridge Software". 2004-04-26.
  19. ↑ "Fair Isaac and Braun Consulting Announce Acquisition Agreement". 2004-09-24. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  20. ↑ "Fair Isaac Acquires RulesPower Technology to Advance Business Rules Capabilities". 2005-09-28. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  21. ↑ "Fair Isaac Acquires Dash Optimization, Bringing Increased Power". Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  22. ↑ Howard Pankratz (2012-05-09). "Denver-based Entiera acquired by FICO". Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  23. ↑ "FICO completes $115M acquisition of Adeptra". finance.yahoo.com. Yahoo!. September 10, 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  24. ↑ Ed Stych (2012-11-26). "FICO buys collections and receivables software company". Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  25. ↑ "Infoglide Software acquired by credit score giant FICO". 2013-04-04. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  26. ↑ "FICO Set to Acquire InfoCentricity". 2014-03-14. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  27. ↑ "FICO Adds Big Data Analytics for Hadoop to FICO Analytic Cloud". 2014-05-16. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 "Office Locations". Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 Credit Reporting Agencies FICO Official Site
  30. ↑ Fair Isaac and PRBC Team Up to Enhance Credit Risk Tools Used by Mortgage Industry FICO Official Site

External links

Category talk:Financial technology companies