CHICAGO -- TransUnion, Equifax and Experian have developed VantageScore, a new scoring model that leverages a consistent scoring methodology across all three national credit reporting companies.

VantageScore looks at and analyzes data at the same point in time on the same consumer records from all three national credit reporting companies. VantageScore was developed using a national sample of anonymous credit information of approximately 15 million consumers and uses a score range of 990-501 and score groupings that approximate the familiar academic scale:

• 901-990 A
  

  
  

• 801-900 B
  

  
  

• 701-800 C
  

  
  

• 601-700 D
  

  
  

• 501-600 F
  

  
  

  "By developing a patent-pending approach to consistently interpret the credit information stored within each credit repository, also referred to as characteristic leveling, any credit scoring differences between the credit reporting companies can be attributed to data differences in a consumer's credit file rather than data interpretation," said said TransUnion's Chet Wiermanski, one of the creators of VantageScore and vice president of analytics for the company.