In 1989, Fair Isaac released the first general-purpose FICO score: a single algorithm any lender could buy off the shelf rather than commissioning a custom-built scorecard.
The 1995 GSE adoption, combined with FICO’s already-dominant share in credit cards and autos, set up a glorious early-2000s run for the company.
For much of FICO’s existence, the score business had monopoly market share but virtually no monopoly pricing power.
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Any modern financial system operates on a foundation of trust, but historically, quantifying that trust was a highly subjective and presumably flawed endeavor. Prior to the widespread adoption of statistical credit scoring, lending decisions were governed almost
