Sen. Hawley starts investigating Fair Isaac’s credit score pricing

has opened a new investigation into Fair Isaac Corp.’s (FICO’s) mortgage credit score pricing, targeting recent, large price hikes and urging the FTC to launch its own probe into potential anticompetitive conduct and consumer harm.

What Hawley just did

• Sent a letter to FICO’s CEO announcing a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigation into FICO’s pricing practices in the mortgage credit scoring market.

• Sent a separate letter to FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson urging the FTC to investigate FICO for “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.”

• Framed the issue as a competition and affordability problem, emphasizing the impact on first‑time homebuyers in an already unaffordable housing market.

Key pricing allegations

• For 2026, FICO allegedly doubled its per‑score mortgage price from 4.95 dollars to 10.00 dollars for the same product as in 2025 (more than a 100% increase).

• Hawley’s office estimates that this one‑year increase could raise industry‑wide mortgage credit score costs by about 500 million dollars, costs that are typically passed through to borrowers.

• The letters highlight that borrowers, particularly first‑time homebuyers, often pay for multiple credit checks across several applications, magnifying the impact of per‑score hikes.

Market power and prior actions

• Hawley emphasizes that FICO dominates the business‑to‑business credit scoring market, with around 90% share and historic status as the only score accepted for conforming loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

• He argues FICO has “abused” this government‑enabled market power by implementing a pattern of “extraordinary” price increases rather than competing on price.

• This builds on earlier letters in 2024–2025, where Hawley urged DOJ’s Antitrust Division to investigate FICO’s “monopoly power” and repeated mortgage score price hikes (for example, from 3.50 dollars to 4.95 dollars per score).

Potential implications for lenders and borrowers

• If sustained, FICO’s higher per‑score prices raise credit report costs for lenders, especially where tri‑merge reports and multiple pulls are involved; these costs are commonly embedded in borrower fees or pricing.

• Hawley explicitly links the price increases to worsening housing affordability and disproportionate harm to lower‑income and first‑time borrowers.

• The investigation could expand into a broader Judiciary Committee inquiry into the structure and competitiveness of the credit scoring market, including the role of alternative models like VantageScore.

Lender‑side vs. borrower‑side focus (high level)