Equifax and FICO have introduced the Credit Capacity Index to give lenders and credit grantors easy access to a unique analytic tool to better assess consumer credit risk. The Index is "the first forward-looking risk management tool that rank-orders consumers based on their ability to take on future debt. Available through Equifax, Credit Capacity Index enables lenders to strengthen their account acquisition and account management strategies while minimizing exposure to potential losses while not burdening consumers with too much debt." READ MORE

FICO has announced the general availability of its Falcon Fraud Manager 6.0 - saying "it is the first payment card fraud management solution to incorporate adaptive analytics, an innovation that accelerates financial institutions’ ability to spot new fraud patterns and prevent them from causing extensive damage. Early response to this innovation has been enthusiastic, with multiple projects already underway, including an installation at a major, U.S.-based credit card issuer." READ MORE

FICO has announced the release of its newest FICO scores targeted specifically to the automobile lending and bankcard industries. TransUnion is making the scores available to lenders and issuers under the names FICO® Risk Score, Classic Auto 08 and FICO® Risk Score, Classic Bankcard 08. READ MORE

FICO has announced the launch of a new subscription service for businesses, FICO Score Trends. Through the service, "lenders will be able to access and drill down into industry FICO® score trends, indexed by a range of criteria such as industry, geography and time period, to regularly analyze their own portfolios and improve their risk management and forecasting." READ MORE

Fair Isaac has announced it is releasing its Falcon Fraud Manager 6.0 scoring server to select customers who wish to begin deployment projects ahead of the product’s general availability in the spring of 2009. The new version applies recent advances in fraud analytics and profiling to help financial institutions quickly identify changing fraud patterns and minimize losses. READ MORE

Fair Isaac has introduced the Fraud Alert Network Forum, an online community in which financial professionals share tips, techniques and experiences in dealing with increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes. The new forum, previously known as the CardAlert Fraud Forum, originally launched in 2002. READ MORE

Equifax and Fair Isaac have announced a partnership "to develop and sell advanced analytics and scoring solutions for businesses and consumers. Under the agreement, the two companies will leverage Equifax's consumer credit data and Fair Isaac's scoring technology, and will jointly market and sell new FICO analytic products." READ MORE

Fair Isaac has announced the release of TRIAD adaptive control system version 8.3 providing credit grantors with access to 'improved flexibility and processing capabilities that accelerate the development and implementation of profitable decisions in account and customer management, at both the enterprise and portfolio levels.' Fair Isaac says that 65% of bankcards globally are processed on a Fair Isaac adaptive control system. READ MORE

Fair Isaac has announced an alliance with High Mark Credit Information Services of India to introduce Fair Isaac's global-standard FICO credit risk scoring technology to Indian lenders.

Fair Isaac has announced "a new forward-looking decision tool kit for lenders. The Fair Isaac Risk Management Suite, available in 2Q08, provides deeper insight into the future debt sensitivity and default risk of individuals, as well as more precise understanding of default risk across entire loan portfolios."

Fair Isaac and Associacao Comercial de Sao Paulo (ACSP), one of the largest credit bureaus in Brazil, have announced ACSP’s launch of Global FICO Score for Brazilian businesses - saying that "the launch of this innovative consumer credit-risk score makes Brazil the first South American nation to access Fair Isaac’s global-standard FICO credit risk scoring technology."

Fair Isaac has announced that it will team up with NYCE Payments Network to "deliver innovative device-profiling technology to the debit card industry, providing NYCE Network participants with one of the best fraud detection and prevention offerings in its class."

Online Resources and Fair Isaac have announced a partnership to "accelerate access to industry-leading collections and payment capabilities for hundreds of collection agencies and debt buyers."

Fair Isaac has announced that it will "adjust its FICO scoring formula to ensure the continued reliability and predictive power of FICO scores. This action is intended to protect lenders and FICO scores from abuse of authorized user credit card accounts by a new kind of credit repair service that sells consumer credit card histories to credit applicants in order to purposefully misrepresent the applicants’ own credit history to lenders and other businesses."

Fair Isaac has announced that its FICO Expansion credit risk score "has proven in a major lending-industry study to be the first strong and reliable credit score for assessing the risk of millions of Americans who have little or no credit information on file at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. The study also demonstrated that FICO Expansion score aligns with the company’s industry-standard Classic FICO score for quicker adoption by lenders and combined coverage of as many as 50 million more American consumers than can be addressed by any competing credit risk model." According to an FAQ, the "FICO Expansion score analyzes non-traditional credit data. Examples of such data include deposit account records, pay day loan cashing, and purchase payment plan performance."

Fair Isaac Corporation has announced that it filed a lawsuit yesterday in Federal Court in Minneapolis "alleging that the three national credit reporting agencies and a jointly owned entity have violated antitrust laws and engaged in unfair competitive practices." Fair Isaac alleges that "Equifax Inc., Experian Information Solutions Inc., TransUnion LLC and VantageScore Solutions, LLC, through their launch and marketing of the VantageScore credit scoring model, are jointly engaging in unfair and anti-competitive practices that harm the FICO credit score brand and goodwill that Fair Isaac has spent 50 years creating."

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and Fair Isaac Corporation have announced plans to collaborate on a research study on click fraud and click quality in pay-per-click advertising (PPC advertising).

Eileen Alt Powell reports for the AP with more details about VantageScore, the new credit scoring system announced yesterday by the three major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

Burt Helm reports for Business Week on increasing concerns about click fraud on Internet advertising - and on plans by Fair Isaac, a company with considerable expertise in the area of financial fraud detection, to announce at this week's Search Engine Strategies Conference that it intends to help the online advertising industry better address the growing problem of click fraud.

Stef Donev of Interest.Com writes for the Orlando Sentinel about some of the "odd" aspects of how FICO credit scores are calculated - in particular, on the notion of credit utilization. For example, your credit score will fall if you cancel credit cards with large credit lines but low or no outstanding debt on them and leave open other credit card accounts which are closer to being maxed out.