The purpose of today’s credit score system is to eliminate bias. Before credit scores, borrowers were deemed creditworthy by lenders using factors such as income, referrals and even home visits. In 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act disallowed credit-score systems from using information like sex, race, marital status, national origin and religion.
Today, FICO considers payment history, amounts owed, length of credit history, new credit and credit mix in its model. But that data may be influenced by generational wealth that many Black and Hispanic borrowers did not have equal access to, says Frederick Wherry, professor of sociology and director of the Dignity and Debt Network at Princeton University.
“We’re often told to stop talking about history, but history won’t stop talking about us,” Wherry says. “The data used in current credit scoring models are not neutral; it’s a mirror of inequalities from the past. By using this data we’re amplifying those inequalities today. It has striking effects on people’s life chances.”
The article you provided and states right there that those who do not have generational wealth don’t benefit from credit scores because several of the considered factors are things they don’t have.
I don’t know if I buy that they were created to reduce discrimination, but even if they were, it’s an incredibly flawed system.
If a person pays off a loan that is a good thing. That shouldn’t make tour credit score lower.
I paid off a loan and a card and consolidated my debt to a lower interest rate loan and my score dropped 20 points even though I had overall less debt and at a lower interest rate. All because the average age of my credit dropped.
