SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 10, 2026--
VantageScore today announced a significant new release for VantageScore RiskRatio™, the credit risk analytics tool designed to help mortgage, auto lenders and ABS investors benchmark, compare and act on consumer credit default risk. VantageScore’s suite of open-access digital tools provides users with interactive credit insights across models, industries and lifecycle stages. In addition to RiskRatio™ and CreditGauge™, the suite includes Inclusion360®, which uncovers underserved consumers by geographic market, and MarketGain™, which quantifies the expanded addressable market available through VantageScore credit score adoption.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260410913562/en/
“RiskRatio has become an essential tool for mortgage lenders, auto lenders and ABS investors looking to move beyond static views of credit risk,” said Susan Fahy, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer at VantageScore. “With these enhancements, we’re providing deeper benchmarking, expanded performance metrics and more timely insights, so institutions can identify emerging risks earlier and respond with greater confidence.”
Key enhancements to RiskRatio™ include:
DYNAMIC BENCHMARKING ACROSS TIME PERIODS, CREDIT PRODUCTS AND SCORE BANDS : RiskRatio enables comparisons to credit performance across up to 30 time periods, including pre-pandemic, pandemic and Great Recession environments. With expanded segmentation across products, such as HELOCs, HELOANs and First Mortgages, auto loans and multiple analytical views across vintages, VantageScore bands and lifecycle stages, lenders can better align strategies to real-world performance and evolving market conditions in comparison to competitors’ more limited, single-view approaches.
EXPANDED RISK METRICS AND VISIBILITY INTO CONSUMER CREDIT PERFORMANCE : RiskRatio expands beyond traditional delinquency measures by incorporating a broader range of performance indicators, including 30+, 60+, 90+ and 120+ days past due, as well as charge-offs and bankruptcies. RiskRatio’s flexible performance windows (6, 12 and 24 months) allow the assessment of both near-term and long-term risk dynamics, identifying emerging credit deterioration sooner and helping lenders adjust strategies proactively.
MORE TIMELY AND ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS : VantageScore’s comprehensive suite of digital tools, including RiskRatio, contains the most up-to-date and granular consumer credit scoring data available to the market. For example, CreditGauge™ provides monthly updates on U.S. consumer credit health, enabling lenders to contextualize portfolio performance within broader market trends. Together, these tools allow users to move from static snapshots to dynamic, comparative analysis that supports faster, data-driven decision-making.
To explore the latest insights from RiskRatio Powered by VantageScore®, please visit https://www.vantagescore.com/lenders/risk-ratio/.
About VantageScore®
VantageScore is the fastest-growing credit scoring company in the U.S., and is known for the industry’s most innovative, predictive and inclusive credit score models. In 2024, usage of VantageScore increased by 55% to hit 42 billion credit scores. More than 3,700 institutions, including nine of the top 10 U.S. banks, use VantageScore credit scores and digital tools to provide consumer credit products or generate greater insights into consumer behavior. The VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring model scores 33 million more people than traditional models. With the FHFA allowing the immediate use of VantageScore 4.0 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteed mortgages, the company is also ushering in a new era for mortgage lending.
VantageScore is an independent joint venture company owned by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
RiskRatio Enables Lenders and ABS Investors to Strengthen Consumer Credit Risk Benchmarking
NEW YORK (AP) — Environmentalist Christine Holland closely follows journalist Tiffany Higgins' stories from the Amazon River region, frequently sending her comments and questions. This week, Higgins responded to one message about her piece on the Brazilian arts community by sending Holland a lengthy personal video.
They've turned the usual one-way conversation between a journalist and consumer into a two-way one, and a deal announced Friday indicates that is much more likely to be happening in the future.
The New York-based news company Noosphere signed a multiyear licensing agreement with British broadcaster Sky News to make available its technology that facilitates such connections through an app. Sky immediately announced that it would begin experimenting with its usage for its defense and security experts, promising “a dedicated experience expressly designed for highly engaged audiences.”
The organizing principle of the whole thing: Give audiences access — not only to the news but to those who report it.
Noosphere's founder, former war correspondent Jane Ferguson, said she's been talking with some U.S.-based news companies about similar deals.
“Getting the endorsement of the industry is really special for us,” she said. “It has been a long time coming for them to be ready for this level of a change.”
Ferguson's 2-year-old company hosts some two dozen journalists — among them former NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd and former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza — working almost like independent contractors. They specialize in a more personal style of reportage from all over the world, and part of that is making themselves available to people who follow their work.
Holland, a retired marketing executive from Menlo Park, Calif., said she's corresponded with Higgins several times, often through text messages in the Noosphere app. She feels it brings a personal stake to the stories, more like the journalist is talking to them with their work. For years, a common complaint about television news is that it feels like they're telling stories from “on high.”
“With this, I am much more inclined to remain loyal” to the journalist and news outlet, she said.
That's likely music to the ears of news executives who spend countless hours looking for ways to combat declining viewership or readership. The rise in journalists going independent on Substack or YouTube, some of whom offer subscribers personal access for a price, shows the appeal to consumers for the “authenticity” of feeling journalists are reporting directly to them, Ferguson said.
“It's so hard to know what is even written by a human being anymore,” Holland said. “I really appreciate that there is a real human being behind the story.”
Mike Varga, a retired businessman who lives near Tampa, Florida, said he's accustomed to getting no response or pro forma replies when writing to news organizations or politicians. But Todd sent him a brief video “thank you” when Varga complimented him on a story about tariffs. He wrote to Ferguson after she did a story about the late British war photographer Paul Conroy, and she invited him to a focus group meeting about Noosphere.
It makes him feel more connected to a place where he turns for news. “It's kind of surprising more media organizations don't do that,” Varga said.
When a consumer subscribes to Noosphere to follow the work of a specific journalist, that person gets a part of the subscription fee in a revenue-sharing agreement. That business approach is not part of what Noosphere is selling to a broadcaster like Sky, but giving their journalists more independence might be a way to save money and “not lose them to YouTube.”
Meanwhile, some journalists in legacy media crave more independence but are frightened by going totally alone and still like the platform that a big company can offer, she said. This is a potential middle ground.
“We see a lot of appetite for deals like this,” she said. “We're very interested and looking forward to expanding into the U.S. marketplace.”
Ferguson and Sky News didn't offer financial details of their arrangement, nor has Noosphere publicly said how many subscribers it has.
David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
FILE - Jane Ferguson, founder of Noosphere, is photographed in the site's office, in New York, Wednesday, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
