Primary, Secondary Market Maximize Use of Data Pools.(Special Report)

Byline: Amilda Dymi

Stamford, CT-It appears the industry is fulfilling demand for transparency and coherence in customer credit reporting and asset risk evaluation through data pools that maximize the use of existing resources - both in the primary and the secondary market.

Standard & Poor's has fully integrated VantageScore into LEVELS 6.6, S&P's U.S. mortgage analytical model. VantageScore is the borrower credit score jointly developed by the three national credit reporting companies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

VantageScore president and CEO, Barrett Burns sees the Standard & Poor's acceptance of VantageScore as a way to provide new insight into the securitized mortgage loan market.

David Goldstein, managing director at Standard & Poor's, said that the inclusion of VantageScore into the rating agency's data processing model will allow S&P "to offer the market even greater transparency and insight into the performance and surveillance of RMBS securities."

The data exchange partnership is also expected to provide banks with "greater flexibility" when using the S&P LEVELS as a risk management tool to monitor their whole loan mortgage portfolios.

The rating agency said the decision was based on a company analysis of VantageScore "to determine whether the score was an appropriate measure of borrower risk," which concluded that VantageScore allows for fair ratings analysis for U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities.