The industry's emerging credit-score competition may not stop at FICO and VantageScore.
The Community Home Lenders of America is pointing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's decision to publicly disclose their own proprietary credit scores as a potential first step toward a market in which lenders could eventually have more scoring options competing for mortgage business.
That isn't the market lenders have today. Fannie Score and Freddie Score are not alternatives that loan originators can currently select instead of Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0.
But CHLA argues that making the GSE scores more visible could lay groundwork for additional competition.
In a Sept. 29 letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, CHLA said it has advocated since May 2025 for "not just two suppliers of mortgage credit score algorithms, but up to four," with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's own algorithms becoming potential additional market entrants.
The trade group called the latest disclosure changes "an important initial step" in that direction.
The argument arrives just as the mortgage industry's first large-scale experience with competing scoring models is beginning to demonstrate why the choice can matter to individual borrowers.
Rocket Mortgage and United Wholesale Mortgage have both reported that VantageScore 4.0 can produce more favorable results than Classic FICO for some borrowers, potentially affecting qualification, pricing, or other loan terms.
Meanwhile, FHFA has moved toward eliminating different GSE pricing treatment between the models, and TransUnion this week extended its 99-cent VantageScore mortgage pricing through 2028.
For loan originators, a credit score is increasingly becoming more than a number pulled from a file. On eligible loans, which scoring model is used can affect the result.
Fannie And Freddie Put Their Own Scores On Display
Fannie Mae announced Sept. 22 that, beginning Oct. 19 with securities issued in October, it will expand its single-family mortgage-backed securities disclosures to include Fannie Score, Freddie Score, and a pricing indicator identifying which credit-score model was used to price a loan.
The disclosures will also include weighted-average fields for the proprietary GSE scores and credit-score models used in pricing.
The changes are being made in alignment with Freddie Mac as part of the GSEs' broader transition to multiple credit-score models.
Fannie Score is not new. Fannie Mae says the proprietary model has been used as part of Desktop Underwriter's credit-risk assessment since 2000. Fannie also published historical Fannie Score data in September to give market participants more information about its internal credit assessment.
Importantly, Fannie says its proprietary score is not used to price the loan.
Instead, the new MBS disclosures will give investors another measure for analyzing the credit characteristics of loans underlying securities, alongside whichever credit-score model — currently Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0 — was used for pricing.
CHLA believes greater transparency could have broader consequences.
"CHLA believes your efforts to have more data available to assess prepayment speeds and credit performance of the underlying mortgages will improve market efficiency and ultimately the safety and soundness of the overall US mortgage market," the group wrote to Pulte.
CHLA added that more data and comparative metrics could eventually help put competitive pressure on mortgage credit-score prices.
That is where the group's proposal goes beyond the changes FHFA has actually implemented.
CHLA has advocated for Fannie and Freddie's proprietary algorithms to eventually become additional competitors in a market currently centered on FICO and VantageScore.
FHFA has not announced plans to authorize Fannie Score or Freddie Score as credit models lenders can choose when originating GSE loans.
For now, Classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0 remain the two models lenders can use for eligible Fannie and Freddie deliveries. FHFA says FICO Score 10T is also approved but is not yet eligible for loan delivery, with implementation guidance still to come.
Two Models Are Already Producing Different Results
The potential value of additional competition is becoming more tangible because lenders are beginning to disclose what happens when they compare the models available today.
As NMP reported earlier this month, UWM said approximately 25% of borrowers in its pipeline were receiving a more advantageous credit result using VantageScore 4.0 instead of the traditional FICO model.
UWM said those differences could potentially improve loan-level price adjustments, mortgage insurance, pricing, or loan eligibility. The wholesale lender projected that the share of borrowers receiving a more favorable result could reach two in five by the end of September.
A different score doesn't automatically produce a better mortgage. Income, assets, debt-to-income and loan-to-value ratios, and other underwriting requirements still apply.
But for brokers working with borrowers near a qualification or pricing threshold, having another approved scoring model can create another path to test.
Rocket Mortgage has now reached a similar conclusion after a considerably larger comparison.
The lender said this week that it obtained 1.4 million credit reports using both VantageScore and FICO during testing this year.
Rocket said VantageScore helped more clients meet credit requirements and move forward with a mortgage. Among borrowers who saved money using VantageScore, the company said average savings were approximately $1,600 at closing.
Rocket plans to make VantageScore 4.0 its preferred scoring model for eligible retail loans during the fourth quarter.
Its broker channel will take a different approach: Rocket Pro will continue offering both models, allowing brokers to compare results rather than defaulting to one.
FHFA Moves Toward One Pricing Grid
Another distinction between the two scoring models is also set to disappear.
FHFA Director Bill Pulte said Monday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will move to a single loan-level price adjustment grid, with VantageScore 4.0 joining Classic FICO on the same pricing framework.
The change follows the GSEs' initial use of separate LLPA treatment for loans scored with VantageScore and Classic FICO. Under the VantageScore framework introduced earlier this month, scores were effectively mapped to Classic FICO pricing buckets 20 points lower.
Pulte did not provide a date for when the unified grid will take effect or additional details on how it will be structured.
Moving to one grid does not mean a borrower's FICO and VantageScore will be the same. Results reported by Rocket and UWM show that the two models can produce different scores and, in some cases, different borrower outcomes.
For originators, that makes the ability to compare available scoring models particularly relevant when working with an eligible borrower near a pricing or qualification threshold.
The Other Competition Is Over What Scores Cost
CHLA's push for more scoring options isn't only about how borrowers are evaluated.
It is also about how much the mortgage industry pays to evaluate them.
The group has repeatedly criticized increases in mortgage credit-score prices and is now predicting another increase for 2027.
CHLA said in its letter that score-price increases have occurred each fall since 2022 and reiterated an earlier prediction that another increase could come this fall. That is CHLA's forecast; FICO has not announced the 2027 increase described by the group.
At the same time, VantageScore's backers are competing aggressively on price.
TransUnion announced this week that it will extend its 99-cent mortgage price for VantageScore 4.0 through December 2028, providing lenders and mortgage resellers with a multiyear pricing commitment.
The company says more than 1,100 mortgage lenders used VantageScore 4.0 between January and September, including nine of its 15 largest mortgage lender customers.
That puts price competition alongside borrower outcomes as another factor lenders can consider when choosing between available scoring models.
CHLA argues that adding still more competitors could eventually exert further pressure on those costs.
"With time, your reforms will be wholly integrated into US mortgage markets, and we believe they will provide a badly needed market check on dramatic price hikes," the group told Pulte.
CHLA's vision of as many as four competing scoring algorithms remains an industry proposal, not FHFA policy.
But for loan originators, the impact of greater competition is already tangible: on an eligible loan, the model used to score a borrower can produce a different result. CHLA's proposal raises the possibility that today's two-model comparison may eventually become an even bigger field.
