is the most commonly used credit score, with more than 90% of all lenders and creditors using it for making their lending decisions and determining your terms. There are (Standard, Auto industry & Mortgage), all of which run on the same scale, from 300 to 850.

Back in 2006, the 3 major credit bureaus (TransUnion, Experian & Equifax) had come up with a new credit score called in an attempt to compete with Fico. Running on a scale from 501 to 990, the new Vantage score claims to better predict risks and benefit with consumers that have “thin” credit files. Most creditors however continue to use Fico.

The following credit score rating chart illustrates the differences between Fico and Vantage:

If you have a credit score of say 680, it actually means nothing unless you know which credit score rating chart is being used. If the 680 is a Fico score then your credit is good and you can expect very good terms. If however the 680 is a Vantage score – your credit is actually very bad and you will probably won’t even qualify

Additional Credit Scores In addition to the standard/generic Fico and Vantage scores, each of the 3 major credit bureaus has its own private version of Fico, namely Beacon, TransRisk, Empirica , Pinnacle, ScorePower etc. While most of them run on the same scale as Fico (300-850), some use a slightly different scale. For more information about these credit scores and the differences between them see .