Fair Isaac Falls 26.52% as Mortgage-Score Competition Advances

Fair Isaac (FICO) closed at $617.87 on September 29, 2026, down $223.02, or 26.52%, from its September 28 close of $840.89. Trading volume rose to 4,884,647 shares from 345,842 the prior session. The decline coincided with developments that could increase competition for FICO’s mortgage-origination scores. The available evidence does not establish how much of the move is attributable to each announcement.

The announcements preceding the decline

On September 28, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would move to one mortgage-pricing grid, with VantageScore joining the existing Classic FICO grid. The announcement gave neither an effective date nor a fee schedule. Those details are needed to determine how the grid will affect lenders’ costs when they submit loans using either score model.

At 6:17 a.m. Eastern on September 29, TransUnion said its standalone VantageScore 4.0 mortgage-origination score would remain priced at $0.99 through December 2028. This extended an existing price. TransUnion also said mortgage customers buying a FICO score would continue to receive VantageScore 4.0 at no additional cost. The offer gives lenders a stated price for an alternative score over a longer period, although it does not show how many will change their purchases.

The two announcements concerned different parts of the mortgage-scoring decision. Pulte described a proposed change to the enterprises’ pricing grid, while TransUnion specified a price charged for its VantageScore 4.0 product. Together, they provide grounds to reassess FICO’s prospective mortgage-score pricing and unit demand. Neither announcement quantifies a change in FICO revenue.

The FHFA’s interim policy has allowed all approved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders to use VantageScore 4.0 for eligible loans without prior written approval since September 9. Lenders may still use Classic FICO. FICO Score 10T has been approved, but it is not yet eligible for loan delivery under that policy. Lender access to VantageScore therefore preceded both the September 28 grid announcement and TransUnion’s September 29 price extension.

Rocket Mortgage supplied a named lender-adoption plan on September 28. It said it intended to make VantageScore 4.0 its preferred model for eligible direct-to-consumer mortgages during the fourth quarter of 2026. Rocket said some products would continue using FICO and its broker channel would offer both models. Its plan is a future transition with stated exceptions; it does not establish that its eligible loans had already switched.

Why the change matters to FICO

FICO reported $458.9 million in Scores revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, up 41% from a year earlier. The total includes products outside mortgage scoring, so it cannot be treated as mortgage-score revenue. It does show the scale of a business segment in which mortgage-origination pricing contributed to recent growth.

FICO attributed 49% year-over-year growth in business-to-business Scores revenue primarily to a higher mortgage-origination score unit price. That disclosure makes future mortgage-score prices material to assessing whether the recent growth rate can continue. It does not indicate how much revenue FICO would lose if lenders used VantageScore for some eligible loans or bought both scores.

The September 29 repricing is consistent with investors assigning greater weight to that competitive risk. A lower-priced alternative available to approved lenders could affect FICO’s future score volume, its ability to raise prices, or both. The announcements provide no measure of lender take-up, displaced FICO purchases or the net effect on FICO’s margins.

What remains to be measured

The timing and published fees of the proposed single grid remain unknown. Until those terms are available, its effect on the relative cost of submitting loans with Classic FICO or VantageScore cannot be calculated. The September 28 announcement alone does not establish which model lenders will prefer under the eventual grid.

Rocket’s planned fourth-quarter transition offers a specific adoption milestone, but its product and channel exceptions limit what it can demonstrate about FICO displacement. Subsequent lender decisions will also need to show whether VantageScore purchases replace FICO scores or accompany them. FHFA has announced neither a date for FICO Score 10T loan-delivery eligibility nor a date for retiring Classic FICO.

FICO’s later disclosures will be needed to assess changes in mortgage-score units, prices and margins, alongside results from its other Scores and Software products. The September 29 closing decline records a substantial reassessment of the stock; the available announcements do not isolate the market effect of TransUnion’s release from the developments announced the day before.

MacroShed Markets is informational analysis, not investment advice.