CEO says the FICO score provider isn’t a monopoly: ‘There are alternatives’

In a Friday interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Fair Isaac CEO Will Lansing challenged the accusation that his company has a monopoly on the industry.
Fair Isaac is an analytics software and services company known for developing the FICO score.
Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley penned a letter urging the Department of Justice to investigate Fair Isaac's potentially anticompetitive practices.

In a Friday interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Fair Isaac CEO Will Lansing challenged the accusation that his company has a monopoly on the industry. Fair Isaac is an analytics software and services company known for developing the FICO score.

"We don't have a monopoly, there are alternatives to FICO score. But what we do have is the best score, and the lowest cost and best way of evaluating credit for a broad population at the low cost," Lansing said. "There are alternatives, and we're there because we're good, not because we have some kind of special privileges."

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In March, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley penned a letter urging the Department of Justice to investigate Fair Isaac's potentially anticompetitive practices. Hawley claimed the company dominates the market and has managed to unfairly increase its prices.

"This is, in short, a company abusing its market power to pad its bottom line and make life worse for Americans," the Republican legislator wrote. "The last thing this country needs is another company distorting the housing market in the name of corporate profits."

Lansing stressed that Fair Isaac's services are set at at low cost for its banking customers, adding he's proud that the company helps "get credit into the hands of almost anyone who can responsibly handle it." He also pointed out that Fair Isaac faced an antitrust investigation several years ago and "came out clean."