#FICO

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Consumers have a new way to keep an eye on their FICO credit scores, but it comes at a fairly high price.

Experian, one of the three major credit-reporting companies, began offering a FICO score Monday as part of a credit-monitoring service that costs $21.95 a month. The FICO score consumers will receive will be based on the information in their credit report with Experian. The company will also alert subscribers to activity such as attempts to open accounts in their name, as well as provide help if they become victims of identity theft. (The price increased from $19.95 last week, but existing customers aren’t affected.)

Many credit scores exist and are sold or given free to consumers. But FICO scores matter most because they are used in 90% of consumer-lending decisions, according to CEB TowerGroup, a financial-services research firm. FICO scores were created by San Jose, Calif.-based Fair Isaac Corp. known as FICO.

When consumers know their FICO score, they can have a better idea of whether they’re likely to get approved for a mortgage or other loan, as well as whether they might have a chance at getting a lower interest rate than what they’re currently paying.  Even a small difference in a score can mean a higher or lower interest rate on a new loan.

Until last week, Experian was provided its own so-called Plus credit score to subscribers, but now it is in the process of eliminating that score for consumers. “We were hearing complaints from consumers” who were confused by differences between the FICO and Plus scores, says Guy Abramo, president of Experian Consumer Services, a unit of Experian, which is based in Dublin, Ireland. “We were spending a lot of time explaining it [and consumers] were hearing from lenders that credit decisions are made using FICO.”

Consumers can already access their FICO score elsewhere. FICO’s consumer website, myFICO.com. has been selling its scores to consumers for over a decade, says Jeff Scott, a spokesman for FICO.  Since mid-2013, consumers have been able to see their FICO scores based on their credit reports from all of the three major credit-reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

At myFICO.com, people can pay $19.95 for a FICO score and credit report from any one of the three firms—bringing the cost for all three to nearly $60.

Separately, Equifax sells FICO scores based on its credit report to consumers as well. The price is as low as $14.95 a month. TransUnion stopped selling the FICO score in 2009.

The best deal for consumers, however, might be a relatively recent development. A growing number of lenders offer customers the score for free in an arrangement that FICO began cementing with lenders in 2013. Citigroup. for example, will begin providing its customers who have Citi-branded credit cards with their FICO score in January. Other lenders that have signed up include Discover Financial Services ; SLM Corp. the largest private student-loan lender, better known as Sallie Mae; Barclaycard, a unit of Barclays ; and First National Bank of Omaha, a unit of First National of Nebraska.

FICO estimates that nearly 60 million consumers in the U.S. will soon have access to their FICO scores under such agreements—up from around 32 million currently and around eight million when the program started in November 2013.

The FICO scores offered by lenders could be of most help to consumers because they are the actual score that that particular lender has on them. There are dozens of FICO scores, which means consumers who buy a FICO score may not be seeing the actual score lenders are using, says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at CreditSesame.com, a credit-management site, and a former manager at FICO. For example, there are FICO scores that are heavily weighted on how consumers manage certain types of loans, like just credit cards or car loans or mortgages, he says.

In what could be of more help for consumers, Experian says it plans to offer such FICO scores to its consumer subscribers in 2015. In addition to the FICO score it’s currently offering, it will provide FICO scores heavily weighted toward mortgages, car loans and credit cards to subscribers next year, says Mr. Abramo.

There’s another time consumers see their FICO score: Lenders are required to show mortgage applicants their credit score and in most cases, they show the FICO score. Lenders typically provide the three FICO scores based on each of the applicant’s three credit reports.