FICO’s Mortgage Pricing Targeted in Senator’s Investigation

The Missouri Republican announced Monday (March 26) that he was looking into the credit scoring company’s recent price hikes, and that he wants the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to do the same.

“These price increases are most damaging to the Americans who can least afford them,” the letter reads. “First-time homebuyers bear a disproportionate burden of the cost.” 

PYMNTS has contacted FICO for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

Hawley said that in the last five years, FICO has increased the royalty it collects on mortgage originations from $0.60 to $10.00. For 2026, the company doubled its per-score price from $4.95 to $10.00 “for the identical product offered the prior year,” he wrote.

Hawley added that each standard credit pull for a mortgage requires a FICO score from all three credit bureaus. FICO collects a royalty on each score regardless of the outcome of the loan, which means “the company profits handsomely from the unsuccessful efforts of aspiring homeowners,” the letter added.

In a separate letter to the FTC, the senator said the agency’s “consumer protection and competition authority” make it “well-positioned to investigate anticompetitive behavior at FICO.”

As covered here last year, the company’s price increases have also drawn criticism from Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) introduced a program last October designed to let mortgage lenders bypass working with credit bureaus. Weeks later, the company launched a partnership with Plaid to introduce a credit score that uses real-time cash flow data.

“The FICO score has been around since the late 1950s, and there are no indications that the traditional model will be falling wholly by the wayside,” PYMNTS wrote. “But there are signs that the credit arena is roomy enough and allowing new entrants to take their place as competitors, and even collaborators, with the giants of the field.”

In an interview last week with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Clive Kinross, founder and CEO of Propel Holdings, argued that the FICO score is misaligned with the consumers who need credit the most.

“We’re way more interested in their recent cash flow, their recent employment, and earning stability over the last three, six, nine months than we are in what happened two, three, four or five years ago,” he said.