FICO Enhances Lenders’ Ability to Build Resilience into Credit Portfolios for Economic Uncertainty

FICO, a leading analytics software firm, announced that more than 2.5 billion FICO Resilience Index scores were delivered in the last 18 months. The FICO Resilience Index is an innovative analytic tool that leverages credit bureau data to augment the FICO Score with an additional dimension of credit risk insight, helping lenders and investors make more precise decisions during changing economic times.

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“When we discussed using FICO Resilience Index with our auditors and regulators, they applauded our forward-thinking view…There will be early signals [from the pandemic] and these signals are very powerful, especially when FICO Resilience Index is combined with the lender’s internal tools and data.”

More than 200 financial institutions have used the FICO® Resilience Index since it launched in 2020. FICO Resilience Index is designed to identify which consumers are better positioned to weather an economic downturn, enabling lenders and investors to more precisely evaluate and manage their portfolios, thereby helping to prevent potential over-tightening of credit which can delay economic recovery.

“In this current state of economic uncertainty, lenders need analytics that help ensure the safety and soundness of credit,” said Sally Taylor, vice president and general manager, FICO Scores. “FICO Resilience Index is ‘always on,’ working hand-in-hand with the FICO Score to enable lenders to be more proactive and precise in establishing portfolio resilience and enhancing loss mitigation strategies.”

During a FICO World 2022 session entitled “Resilient Credit Lifecycle Strategies are the New Norm,” a panel of industry leaders, including Shree Pragada, head of analytics at Fifth Third Bank, and Mohit Dhillon, managing director of quantitative analytics at Barclays Bank, discussed how lenders can build, manage, and secure credit portfolios in today’s uncertain market environment.

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Dhillon said, “When we discussed using FICO Resilience Index with our auditors and regulators, they applauded our forward-thinking view…There will be early signals [from the pandemic] and these signals are very powerful, especially when FICO Resilience Index is combined with the lender’s internal tools and data.”

Pragada added, “Given the current economic cycle, lenders need to understand the overall lending environment. Is it healthy and expanding, overheated and inflationary or unstable and deteriorating? How much brush or combustible material has been building up on the forest floor, so you can gauge whether the next forest fire will be small and manageable or catastrophic and devastating.”

“Lenders also need to understand,” continued Pragada, “two things from a customer perspective: how much debt to offer and how resilient the customer is to handle their debt. The customer story remains incomplete without the second piece of information. FICO Resilience Index provides a perspective to understand customer resilience to credit risk, so now is the time to deploy as it will provide a gauge on portfolio health and pay-as-agreed probability.”

FICO continues its commitment to innovation with FICO® Resilience Index 2, the latest version of FICO’s groundbreaking product. FICO Resilience Index 2 provides even greater insight into borrower resilience than the original version. Featuring up to twice the power to predict consumer resilience in the face of economic downturn, it supports use cases across a variety of lending products for both new and existing accounts over a wide range of FICO® Scores, from sub-prime to super-prime. FICO Resilience Index 2 can be obtained from all three major US credit bureaus.

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