The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Thursday announced updates to the implementation schedule of new credit score requirements for single-family loans acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs).
After robust stakeholder engagement, FHFA is aligning the implementation date of the bi-merge credit reporting requirement with the transition from the Classic FICO credit score model, with the transition expected in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The agency also announced the GSEs will accelerate the publication of VantageScore 4.0 historical data, originally expected to be published in the first quarter of 2025, to early in the third quarter of 2024.
America’s Credit Unions’ legacy organizations joined several other trade associations and consumer groups in calling on FHFA to release this historical data, as it is vital to analyzing the new models and the bi-merge system to assess any needed changes to systems and models.
FHFA announced in October 2022 the validation and approval of the FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 credit score models for use by the GSEs, as well as moving to the bi-merge approach that uses credit reports from two consumer reporting agencies, rather than three.
According to the FHFA, it continues to work towards providing “similar data to support the transition to the FICO 10T model, contingent upon achieving the necessary conditions for acquisition and publication of this data.”
