Shares of Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), the company behind the widely used FICO credit score, experienced their largest decline since March 2020 following an announcement by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). FHFA director Bill Pulte stated that government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will now allow lenders to use the VantageScore 4.0 credit score, developed by Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, as an alternative to the FICO score for assessing borrowers' creditworthiness in home loan underwriting. This move is intended to increase competition in the credit scoring ecosystem. Despite this development, FICO continues to hold strong integration within the financial infrastructure and has significantly increased mortgage-score fees from 60 cents in 2018 to $4.95 currently, representing a 725% rise. FICO recently released a white paper asserting that its score is more predictive than VantageScore. The FHFA has clarified that lenders will have the option to choose between FICO Classic and VantageScore 4.0, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac updating their Selling Guides accordingly. Industry analysts have noted a favorable risk-reward outlook for FICO's stock amid these changes, and the competition between credit scoring models is expected to expand, potentially including more than two high-predictability, low-cost credit scores in the future.