Why is FICO falling?📉 $FICO

Even though it looked like FICO was starting to recover after such a sharp drop—gaining over +20% in two weeks—it has since fallen again and is down more than 25% in the last week alone. Here are the main reasons↓

The start of the problem

October 1, 2025 FICO officially launched its Mortgage Direct License Program. With this move it offered banks the option to buy scores directly, aiming to cut out credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, etc.) and deprive them of commissions.

Credit bureaus' counterattack

March 9 the credit bureaus announced a broad price cut for their joint VantageScore 4.0 model for mortgages. Experian and TransUnion dropped the price to $0.99 and Equifax to $1 (whereas FICO via the bureaus used to cost banks up to $10).

Debt announcement + price target cuts

March 11 FICO announced it is issuing new debt (Senior Notes) worth $1 billion. That’s common practice, but it certainly didn’t help sentiment. At the same time, reports came out that analysts (e.g., from UBS) were cutting price targets across the board for FICO shares (UBS lowered its target to $1,350 and downgraded to “Neutral”/“Hold”).

🔍My view

I recently opened a starter position in the company with the plan to add on further declines. So far I haven’t bought more because this no longer looks to me like just bad sentiment around SaaS companies, but a real threat to a monopoly. Previously it didn’t pay for banks to switch to the cheaper, lower-quality Vantage score because the price difference wasn’t that big (Vantage used to cost about $5). This price cut is pretty brutal in my view, and if FICO wants to compensate, it will have to lower its price, which will certainly show up in results—mainly in margins. I haven’t had time to study it in depth yet; these are just first impressions, but once I do, I’ll inform you of anything I find.

How do you see it? Do you think this won’t threaten FICO and are you using the dip?