The nation's three major credit data reporting agencies have joined to create a single system for calculating credit scores.

A credit score, used by the vast majority of lenders to approve or deny a mortgage application, is a statistical analysis of a consumers' creditworthiness generated, in part, from information on a credit report. A credit report tracks credit consumers' payment records on individual credit accounts and reveals how well or how poorly each account is being paid. Today, three different credit scores, one from each agency, are based on three different scoring models.

The system uses a numerical score, like previous systems, but also a letter grading system scoring consumers from A to F.