An Inside Look at FICO Scores: What every consumer should understand about the most popular credit score.

There are many different forms of credit scores, used by banks, lenders, and financial institutions every single day. But FICO, or the Fair Isaac Corporation, is one of the most popular for analyzing consumer credit data and using it to formulate a score that predicts credit risk.

FICO Scores are used in over 90% of all U.S. lending decisions, making them by far the most popular and widely used credit scores. In fact, each year, millions of lenders, banks, financial institutions, and retaile...