Credit Score Boost

TO YOUR CREDIT

Capital One Financial Corp. says it has changed its reporting policies. Going forward, the company will report all cardholders’ credit limits to the three national credit bureaus, potentially good news for home mortgage applicants because it could raise their credit scores. The Fair Isaac credit system takes into account available credit: If the system can’t accurately determine how much credit is available, it guesses high. According to FICO, this change could boost the credit scores of about 50 million Capital One card holders by 40 to 80 points, which last week would have been enough to cut an applicant’s mortgage rate by more than 1 point, saving the borrower of $300,000 about $220 per month. “It's about time they stopped hurting their own customers,” says Ginny Ferguson, a credit-scoring expert for the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. “They've known all along that [their policy] depressed FICO scores.”

Source: Washington Post Writers Group, Kenneth Harney (08/03/2007)