Credit scorecards (FICO and successors)

entry · p2026-09-06-186 · validated

About 189 million Americans have credit records that can be scored

tech: learned-credit-scoring
passes the definition as: a scorecard fit to historical repayment data, replacing a loan officer's judgment as the thing that prices credit
from: 1989
region: US
domain: access
side: benefit
people: 189,000,000 people (2015-05-05)
effect: — people (2015-05-05) — US adults whose credit record can be scored, so credit is priced by a statistical model on repayment history rather than by a loan officer's discretion
reversible: yes
who holds the switch: owner:FICO
attribution: scale
source kind: primary
the statistic: The CFPB reported on 2015-05-05 that about 189 million Americans have credit records that can be scored, against 26 million credit invisible and 19 million with unscored records. The `from` date is the FICO Score's introduction in 1989 and is not carried by this source.
source: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/archive/newsroom/cfpb-report-finds-26-million-consumers-are-credit-invisible/
proposed by: researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, quiet-adoptions
received: 2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00
harvest report: impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-quiet-adoptions.md

Rulings, in order

2026-09-06T09:39:47-04:00 · validatorpass — quote found on the fetched page (exact match; HTTP 200 text/html; charset=utf-8)
2026-09-06T09:59:36-04:00 · sessionseverity — credit scored by a model: a convenience/access effect

The proposal as it arrived (JSON)

{
 "id": "p2026-09-06-186",
 "received": "2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00",
 "proposer": "researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, quiet-adoptions",
 "kind": "entry",
 "sha": "fb6def1ac3bb1a00",
 "data": {
  "kind": "entry",
  "tech": "learned-credit-scoring",
  "tech_name": "Credit scorecards (FICO and successors)",
  "definition": "a scorecard fit to historical repayment data, replacing a loan officer's judgment as the thing that prices credit",
  "from": "1989",
  "region": "US",
  "domain": "access",
  "side": "benefit",
  "people": {
   "n": 189000000,
   "unit": "people",
   "date": "2015-05-05"
  },
  "effect": {
   "n": null,
   "unit": "people",
   "date": "2015-05-05",
   "what": "US adults whose credit record can be scored, so credit is priced by a statistical model on repayment history rather than by a loan officer's discretion"
  },
  "reversible": true,
  "switch": "owner:FICO",
  "statistic": "The CFPB reported on 2015-05-05 that about 189 million Americans have credit records that can be scored, against 26 million credit invisible and 19 million with unscored records. The `from` date is the FICO Score's introduction in 1989 and is not carried by this source.",
  "source": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/archive/newsroom/cfpb-report-finds-26-million-consumers-are-credit-invisible/",
  "quote": "About 189 million Americans have credit records that can be scored",
  "attribution": "scale",
  "source_kind": "primary"
 },
 "from_file": "impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-quiet-adoptions.md"
}