SAN JOSE, Calif. -

FICO learned of two upbeat developments this week.

First, FICO was named a leader by Forrester Research because the firm “leaves no decisioning stone unturned.”

Then, FICO said it received official notification from the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, regarding a matter that surfaced in the spring when the pandemic began to take hold.

On March 15, the company issued a statement in response to being notified that the Justice Department had opened a civil investigation into potential exclusionary conduct by FICO.

Then on Tuesday, the company said the Department of Justice informed FICO that it has closed that investigation.

“As a result, no enforcement action is being taken,” FICO said in this week’s statement.

At the time the investigation became publicly known, FICO said it intended to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice while looking forward to “a constructive dialogue about the state of competition in our industry.”

FICO elaborated about that assertion in that March statement, saying:

Lenders have multiple choices of analytic models to use in credit decisioning and are free to choose the credit score that works best for them. In a competitive marketplace, the FICO Score is chosen because it is trusted to be independent, predictive and reliable, and because FICO is constantly innovating to enable lenders to responsibly extend access to credit. FICO has also earned the trust of consumers through programs like the FICO Score Open Access initiative, which provides customers from more than 200 financial institutions with free access to the FICO Scores used to manage their credit accounts.

FICO is confident the department will conclude that it has not engaged in any exclusionary conduct.  To the extent the Department’s inquiry was initiated based on TransUnion’s antitrust claims in the parties’ ongoing private litigation — claims TransUnion made only after FICO filed its lawsuit to recover millions in unpaid royalties from TransUnion — we are equally confident the department will find them to be without merit.

Digital decisioning accolade

In other company news, FICO was named leader in this report, The Forrester Wave: Digital Decisioning Platforms, Q4 2020.

FICO explained this market has continued to grow as large enterprises look to evolve and transform their businesses to deliver exceptional customer experience in the new digital economy. FICO pointed out the challenge for enterprises is not necessarily a lack of investment, but how to ensure that their digital transformation will deepen their relationships with each individual customer.

FICO highlighted that it combines decades of data analytics knowledge, deep industry sector expertise and modern software technologies to build platform-based solutions that can break down enterprise data siloes and realize the maximum value that massive data sources can provide.

According to the report, “FICO leaves no decisioning stone unturned. There are no holes to poke in FICO Decision Management Suite (DMS) — it provides all the tools necessary to manage and deploy digital decisions which will standup to the highest standard of regulatory rigor.”

The report notes that, “FICO shows strengths across all evaluation criteria and stands out by offering native and integrated mathematical optimization engine – a rarity in this market segment.”

FICO chief marketing officer Nikhil Behl shared the company’s reaction to this accolade in a news release

“We are honored to be named by Forrester as a leader in the growing market of digital decisioning platforms,” Behl said. “The FICO Platform provides a decisioning foundation critical for enterprises’ digital transformation by helping businesses respond quickly to customers’ immediate needs and anticipate their future demands, resulting in deeper, more engaging customer experiences.”

Forrester used a 22-criterion evaluation of 13 digital decisioning platform vendors and named FICO a leader. Forrester went on to state, “FICO customers can enhance decision logic with native predictive analytics, machine learning and a highly performant mathematical optimization engine.”

To download the full report, go to https://www.fico.com/forrester-wave.