A few card issuers recently began providing the scores on their own — well before the agency’s call — and others are said to be in discussions to follow suit.

While the agency is not requiring the companies to provide the information, it sent a letter to top executives at the nation’s largest credit card companies and asked them to make the scores available in customers’ monthly statements or online.

In its new role as consumer credit watchdog, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday urged credit card companies to give customers free copies of their credit scores — crucial pieces of financial information used to evaluate qualifications for mortgages, credit cards, and even certain types of insurance and rental apartments.


The credit scores — the most popular of which are the FICO scores created by the Fair Isaac Corp. — are based on the information in an individual’s credit reports, which are generated by the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The agencies, which maintain files on more than 200 million consumers, have long been criticized for making it difficult for consumers to fix errors in their reports.

“Making consumers’ credit scores freely available on their monthly statement or online makes it easier for them to spot problems with their credit report,” said Richard Cordray, director of the consumer bureau.

That is one of the main drivers of the agency’s call to make the scores more widely available: The hope is that when consumers notice a change in their score, they might check their credit reports for errors. Consumers are entitled to one free report every year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies through the website annualcreditreport.com.

“Whether they are aware of it or not, people’s ability to access credit, and how much they pay for credit, is typically governed by what is contained in their credit profiles,” Cordray said earlier Thursday at a consumer advisory board meeting.


At least three credit card issuers have begun to provide certain types of free FICO scores to their customers to differentiate themselves from rivals and to educate their cardholders. Discover, for instance, started offering free FICO scores to users of its “Discover it” cards in November, and it recently expanded that to millions of additional cardholders.

Barclaycard, the US card unit of Barclays, and First Bankcard, the card-issuing arm of the First National Bank of Omaha, also began providing free FICO scores last fall.

FICO scores, which are on a 300- to 850-point scale, are used in most lending decisions. VantageScore Solutions, a joint venture of the three major credit reporting companies, generates a score of its own, but it plays second fiddle to FICO. Many card issuers also provide “educational scores,” but they are not the same numbers lenders use to evaluate consumers.

It is hard to say how many card issuers will follow suit, but FICO, which recently made it easier for lenders to provide free scores to consumers through an “open access” program, said it was negotiating with several issuers, both large and small.

Consumer advocates applauded the agency’s move.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to pay to find out their credit score,” said Pamela Banks, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union.

Lenders who deny a consumer a loan or do not give approval for the best interest rate on a credit product are already required to send the applicant a free copy of the credit score used to arrive at the decision. That rule, which went into effect in 2011 as part of a broader financial regulatory overhaul, applies to credit cards, auto loans and student loans. Mortgage lenders were already required to provide free scores to all applicants, even if they received the best terms available.