“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, I’m instructing Fannie and Freddie to approve ALL lenders to use VantageScore.” Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, put that on X on September 4, 2026. By the time US markets had settled, shares of Fair Isaac Corp., the company behind the FICO score, were down about 20% in early trading.
Pulte’s order applies to the two government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both must now accept VantageScore 4.0 from every mortgage originator. Until then, the model had been in a pilot that began May 1 and was limited to 50 lenders. Pulte called the pilot “incredibly successful” and added a line aimed at FICO: “FICO has enjoyed a monopoly. No more.” He said FICO has raised the price of a credit score by 1,800% since 2020.
A pilot that grew fast
Mortgage Professional America reported that, as of August 31, VantageScore 4.0 already appeared in more than 9% of the mortgages the two companies had securitized since the May launch. An analysis by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods put VantageScore volume at 4.4% in July, mostly at big lenders such as Rocket and United Wholesale Mortgage, according to HousingWire. Rocket Mortgage, the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Department of Veterans Affairs had each adopted the model before Pulte’s directive.
VantageScore Solutions says its model scores about 33 million more US adults than FICO Classic or FICO 10T, including nearly 5 million people who are ready for a mortgage but were invisible to older underwriting. It draws on trended credit data along with rent and utility payment histories.
What it means at the closing table
The score a lender uses decides which pricing bucket a borrower lands in. Alex Elezaj, chief strategy officer at United Wholesale Mortgage, described the effect in an earlier interview: “If somebody was here with FICO and now they’re here with VantageScore and that gets them in a different LLPA bucket and all of a sudden they save half a point, on a $300,000 loan, you’re talking a couple thousand bucks.”
A study by Deep Future Analytics estimated that a full rollout across Fannie and Freddie loans would save the market more than $930 million in its first year.
Credit bureaus in the line of fire
Pulte did not stop at FICO. In a pinned post he accused Equifax, Experian and TransUnion of “overcharging Americans for far too long” and said the agency is “seriously considering bi-merge,” a setup in which lenders would pull credit data from two bureaus instead of three. TransUnion fell around 9% on the day and Equifax about 8%. Experian lost roughly 4.6% in London.
Reactions split along familiar lines. The Mortgage Bankers Association backed a move toward a single credit file for borrowers with strong profiles, saying it would promote competition and cut costs. The Community Home Lenders of America called the VantageScore expansion “a decisive action to increase competition and save mortgage borrowers money.” Critics of single-file reporting say the tri-merge model lets borrowers and lenders catch errors and discrepancies between bureaus.
FICO answered with a statement about its commitment to a competitive environment built on performance and trusted analytics, and pointed to its FICO Score 10T as “the most predictive credit score available today.” Silvio Tavares, chief executive of VantageScore Solutions, said the speed of adoption “signals a new era for the mortgage industry.”
Sources
- FHFA opens VantageScore 4.0 to all GSE lenders immediately | Mortgage Professional
- FHFA Opens Door to VantageScore for All Lenders | HousingWire
