Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Thomas J. Brock is a CFA and CPA with more than 20 years of experience in various areas ...

Credit is a financial tool that allows people to borrow money or access goods and services before paying. In today’s world, credit is used for just about everything. From large-scale purchases such as ...

Credit scores and reports haven’t been around that long, in the grand scheme of things, anyway. The first standardized credit scoring model was FICO’s in the ’80s, and there wasn’t a ton of ...

Credit scores existed for decades before 1989. What changed that year was the introduction of the FICO score, the first generic credit scoring system. Previously, lenders developed and used their own ...