 TITLE: What You Need to Know About the New FICO<sup>®<\/sup> 10 Scores CONTENT: FICO® 10 T Considers Trended Data for the First Time\n----------------------------------------------------\nThe FICO® Score 10 Suite will continue to consider the five main factors used in previous FICO® models to determine your FICO® Score: payment history, amounts owed, age of credit history, credit mix and new credit accounts.\nThe FICO® 10 T variant expands into new territory, however, with the goal of giving lenders a more precise assessment of your credit risk. FICO® 10 T does something that no other FICO® Score offered from Experian has ever done: It considers your trended data. Trended data, sometimes called time-series data, is information on your credit reports showing how you've managed your accounts over the previous 24 months, creating a picture of your financial situation during that time.\n> With the FICO® Score 10 Suite, the impact of late payments is more pronounced than with prior FICO® Score versions.\nRegarding credit card accounts appearing on your credit reports, the trended data includes your balances, minimum payment requirements and the amounts you paid on your most recent credit card statements going back 24 months. This allows the credit scoring model to differentiate consumers who pay their credit card debt in full each month (known as \"transactors\") from those who carry over, or \"revolve,\" a balance from month to month. Consumers who pay their credit cards in full each month are generally considered lower credit risks than those who revolve a balance from month to month.\nTrended data also allows a credit scoring model to determine whether you are reducing, maintaining or increasing your balances over time. These factors are considered by the newest scoring models because they help predict credit risk, which enables both consumers and lenders to make more responsible credit decisions.\n\"FICO® invested in the development of both FICO® 10 and 10 T rather than a single score in order to provide lenders with unparalleled flexibility to select which approach works best for them,\" says Ethan Dornhelm, vice president of scores and predictive analytics at FICO®.\nWhat does this mean to you? To make your trended data work for you and not against you, it will be more important than ever to pay your bills on time and pay down or, ideally, pay off your credit card balances well in advance of future credit applications. These trended payments will appear on your credit reports, and FICO® 10 T and VantageScore 4.0 will likely reward you for reducing your balances. Of course, you'll get the added benefit of saving money on interest fees as well. END