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Goodbye FICO, Hello FAKE-O: Behold The Banks' Brilliant "Plan" To Lend To Deadbeats
To be sure, the good folks at Santander Consumer and American Credit Acceptance (among others) are doing everything they can possibly do to get underqualified borrowers into used cars even if it means extending terms that will land some of these proud new owners in vehicles they absolutely cannot afford given their financial circumstances. This is all made possible of course by the Wall Street securitization machine which has churned out some $5 billion in subprime auto-backed issuance YTD, with a recent deal from Santander Consumer (DRIVE 2015-A) marking the lender’s return to the frightening world of “deep” subprime. As a reminder, here are two recent ABS deals which epitomize what’s wrong with this industry:
From American Credit Acceptance…
From Santander Consumer…
Despite the fact that most mainstream commentators are in a complete state of denial about the space — with some anchors on everyone’s favorite “we don’t need Nielsen” financial network even going so far as to suggest viewers should try to arbitrage the difference between the rate you can get on an auto loan and the presumably higher returns you might be able to achieve in the stock market — some observers are playing spoiler including Goldman Sachs and the government. Here’s Deutsche Bank on the latter:
On March 26, the FTC announced six enforcement actions as part of their nationwide crackdown on deceptive practices in auto sales and lending, known as Operation Ruse Control. These actions were focused on auto dealerships and include both criminal and civil charges related to deceptive advertising, auto loan application fraud, odometer fraud and deceptive marketing of car title loans, among others. While CFPB doesn’t have jurisdiction over auto dealerships, FTC does, and we expect to see more of these actions as auto lending, especially in the subprime space, continues to garner scrutiny in the popular media.
And as a reminder, here’s what Goldman had to say recently about the market in general:
Based on our channel checks with US dealers we think GM and Chrysler have the highest share of sales coming from subprime loans at 14% and 15%.
We conclude that GM and Chrysler are the most vulnerable among OEMs with potential EBIT headwinds of 7%.
We believe the challenge for automakers will be how they go about unearthing new opportunities to expand in a low-growth climate without a bubble forming in the US auto market. Drawing on past experience, we think risk of significant defaults will be averted by limiting sales to subprime borrowers. However, our base case is that US auto car sales for 2015 will be flat as a side effect of these actions.
Given all of this — and despite the fact that Santander’s latest ABS deals seem to suggest that not having a FICO score not only isn’t an impediment to getting a car loan, but in fact isn’t even a stumbling block when those loans are packaged and brought to market — lenders just don’t feel like they have enough leeway when it comes to extending credit to people who probably shouldn't be borrowing money. Here’s WSJ:
Millions of Americans unable to obtain credit cards, mortgages and auto loans from banks will receive a boost with the launch of a new credit score aimed at consumers regarded as too risky by lenders.
The new metric, set to be announced as soon as this week, is being developed by Fair Isaac Corp., creator of the most widely used consumer-credit scores, and is being tested in a pilot phase with credit-card issuers. Fair Isaac said it hopes to make as many as 53 million people who don’t have credit scores more acceptable to lenders.
People without scores in most cases don’t use debt either by choice or because a negative credit event, such as a bankruptcy, foreclosure or a collection account, has shut them out of mainstream borrowing.
The new score is largely a response to banks’ desire to boost lending volumes by increasing loan originations to borrowers who otherwise wouldn’t qualify, many of whom tend to be charged more for loans. But the new yardstick will also throw a spotlight on consumers who often are deemed riskier than the rest of the population and could saddle banks with losses if they fail to make good on their loans.
The new score, which isn’t yet named, will be calculated based on consumers’ payment history with their cable, cellphone, electric and gas bills, as well as how often they change addresses and other factors, according to Fair Isaac, also known as FICO. Traditional FICO scores that lenders use in the approval or rejection process are calculated based on the information in the credit reports from the three major credit-reporting firms,Equifax Inc.,Experian PLC and TransUnion.
The new score will instead pull data from a separate database of telecommunications and utilities providers maintained by Equifax. It also will incorporate data from a LexisNexis database, including how often people change addresses, with frequent changes suggesting less stability.
We suppose this was the logical next step for Fair Isaac given that the idea of what we called the non-GAAP FICO was floated back in August of last year as a way making ineligible borrowers suddenly eligible by way of simply not counting all of the bad stuff. Here’s a recap:
According to the WSJ, in what is a desperate attempt to boost the pool of eligible, credit-worthy mortgage recipients, Fair Isaac, the company behind the crucial FICO score that determines every consumer's credit rating, "will stop including in its FICO credit-score calculations any record of a consumer failing to pay a bill if the bill has been paid or settled with a collection agency. The San Jose, Calif., company also will give less weight to unpaid medical bills that are with a collection agency."
Apparently those measures weren’t sufficient to boost the credit profiles of many of America’s underbanked citizens so it was necessary to get more creative in order to ensure lenders could continue to feed auto and consumer loan ABS securitizations and in the end it appears as though when gaming and goal seeking the old score didn’t do the trick, the decision was made to simply create a new score based on whether or not prospective borrowers have managed to keep the lights and the gas heat on (so we assume most of Eastern Ukraine is out).
You can trust that it will only be a matter of time before these loans end up cobbled together in billion dollar ABS issues as well, and in a NIRP world where saving money costs you money, you can bet investors will be happy to take out the mezz tranches for a few hundred basis points of yield.
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Just say no to debt
I'm hoping I can get a zero down 100 year mortgage at 3% per annum. What do you guys think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tta1K_is0ag
So with the crumbing Texas economy along with this info, Texas will be the Used/repo'ed cheap car capital over the next couple of years.
"Credit rating". LMAO. It's not a credit rating, like you've been told, it's a slavery index. C'mon people, think like a bank for a moment. You are not good to the bank unless you are a slave, and the slavery index is the only way they can judge your ability to pay.
FFS, "credit rating" is putting a positive spin on an obvious financial trap for the people. Muppets need to be classified somehow, and Slavery Index does it all.
And without the FED blowing serial asset bubbles, credit and the slavery index would not be needed, so Fuck you FED.
Just trying to squeeze yield out of a turnip, and a bunch are always falling off the truck.
Full Fractional Central Bank Nations In Terminal Death Spirals Run on Debt(TM) .
As aggregate demand and/or access to debt declines, the death spiral accelerates.
Whats wrong with taking on massive debt when it will inflate away? Every country on Earth does this.
Actually poor people should take on all the debt they can get. Buy gold. Have boating accident. Stop making payments on debt. Declare bankruptcy.
Works great for rich a-holes like Trump. You can do it too.
Obedient Slave Index is more accurate, no? The higher the number the more you are considered obedient.
if you can't keep a car in the driveway time to join the FSA! can't find a job w/o a car, right?
fucking low life bullshit...
Whats up with the down votes I was just reading the data? I am wrong that the Texas economy is going to hell and that they are listed as the #1 State?
"Don't mess with Texas"
no worry, you got enough low life shitbags to fuck it all on your own. plus all those libs flocking in from kali, ha... texas toast? ha again.
ps i luv texas, really do...
Nah man. This is to sell new cars to the unwashed masses. It's a channel for money to flow because they know these people will spend it. We must inflate or we'll deflate for Pete's sake. That's my take. I like to bake cake after I rake.
In the past month I've recieved email, snail mail, and a live person phone call from my dealership and the manufacturer practically begging me to turn in my current vehicle for a new. They claim they are terribly short of used inventory. This (west+japan) maker seems pretty desperate if you ask me.
Just move to Tokyo Burt, where you really can get a 35 year mortgage at less than 1.5%
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-07/record-low-mortgage-rates-seen-luring-back-buyers-japan-credit
Yeah, but the geniuses (/s) at the BOJ have so distorted price discovery through their INSANE monetary policy (at least a decade in the making now) that those low, low interest rates come at the expense of real estate prices artificially inflated 3x to 4x fair value (based on wages, productivity, etc.).
Japan is so FUBAR.
And now Kuroda brings Krugman in as an advisor to turbocharge their demise.
Only if they give you the first 30 years interest only payment option - wait - isn't that what they are doing for Greece?
I live in the projects and everyone who live or works here have BMW etc.
Yes, but can you search the tranches and find an arbitrage CDS in the muck?
-The Big Short
I busted my nuts to get an 850 FICO score and the muthafuckers gonna reward the shitbag deadbeats with a "New and Improved" FICO! Bullshit...er I mean BULLISH!
850 means they consider you a prime sap to make money on. It has nothing to do with income.
850 FICO? You must have gotten extra credit for spelling your name right. Nobody gets an 850 unless you have an in with Obama.
You read it right, 850 FICO.
Here's how it works.
1. Go to work
2. Buy stuff you need
3. Don't buy shit you don't need
4. Pay off your car(s)
5. Pay down/off your mortgage
6. Pay all your utilities on time
7. Pay THE ENTIRE CREDIT CARD BALANCE EVERY MONTH. NEVERRRRR CARRY A BALANCE.
8. TRY and live debt free.
9. Save, save save.
In short, do everything the exact opposite of the GUBmint (and 90% of all americans) do.
Pay cash, piss off the debt slave masters!!
Goodus Goyus.
It use to be the way to a 850 was to not touch your credit at all.
I felt the same thing.
If you cant tell the dead beats by the car they drive how can you tell.
Seems like socialism.
You cant afford a nice car Here is a nice X5 BMW dont worry I can give you 10 years to pay and when it is not under warenty any more and you cant afford the 2000 to change spark plugs you can just quit paying for it.
As long as your cell phone is paid.
You couldn't tell who the deadbeats were before the crash because of crazy credit expansion. Deadbeats were able to disguise themselves in nice cars and McMansions, till the bubble popped. Then the emperor had no clothes.
So now in a desperate attempt to reinflate the the credit bubble, banks will once again find a way to giveaway money to untrustworthy borrowers.
I'm sure they're not getting any pressure from the Fed to stimulate borrowing.. nah that wouldn't happen...
too bad you're to stupid not to game the system...which is a game of itself
Atta boy rabbit...same here. Total bull$hit of course.
I forget to make a payment and the bank called me to ask if I wanted easier payments or more money. No chit.
A few years back I was talking to a guy that I worked with about some identity theft topic that was in the news that day. He told me that he had the best identity theft protection you could get...a 460.
LMFAO
+1
Well it won't work anymore. He's going to need better protection.
10's of millions of illegals need some help establishing credit......? Of, so simple really - credit money system! expand debt or die!
I'm still waiting for a bank to offer me a -1% interest rate credit card instead of +24%. I'd even settle for 0%. I keep reading about ZIRP and NIRP but somehow I don't get those deals.
Fair Isaacs, say hello to Crazy Ivans... It's all fun & games until the counterfeitting press stops... Then ~ BACK TO THE GHETTO Lucy!
Fuck that. I want my -550 credit raping....errrrr....rating.
LOL
Wow a lot of people took car loans to buy stocks!
This will end well.
don't worry, the banks all passed their FAKE-O stress tests with flying colors
23.90% APR and 130% LTV?!?
WTF?????
These are just "Repos Waiting to Happen".
Same old game - lend to people who can't pay it back, make the commission on the sale, then get bailed out when the loans go tits up.
This should not be a surprise - no one from the 2008 debacle is in jail or even charged, and they're blowing a much bigger bubble using the same stratagem. BTW - Where is Jon Corzine?
New twist - make loans they can't pay so they can buy things they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like.
It's the American Way!
There is a constant push for "affordable" housing. My own community is doing the same, chained to CBDGs. And soon my community will resemble every other sub-par community.
Cardboard boxes are affordable.
For now, Osmium...... For now.
Buy refrigerator on credit. Then paint the box up real purdy like and sell it for say... 300k before offloading that loan for 250k then buy stocks. That's the plan for summer.
The plan for winter is to buy one of those over under ovens and repeat the process.
This financial advice is so valuable you should be paying me. /s
See, the problem is that people who already can't make ends meet don't spend enough money they haven't earned yet. Fix that issue, and everything's both hunky and dory. Looks like we got the right people on the job.
Anyway I can bet AGAINST each of these car buyers making without a RePo.
If there's such a shortage of debt to sell in the secondary market, when do they start splitting to proceeds with us, the producers of debt?
"the decision was made to simply create a new score based on whether or not prospective borrowers have managed to keep the lights and the gas heat on"
but but i've been running an extension cord to my neighbor's outdoor outlet
Help!
As long as he pays his bill on time, you're golden.
When you print money out of thin air, who cares who you lend to, the loan is secured on a valuable asset and is taken by the bank on foreclosure. The people who pay for that secured asset are all those who hold the Dollar as a store of value, the printed money dilutes and devalues that currency. Hey presto, the banks get the gold and the saps get the mine shaft.
If you have an EBT card, you better be taking the bus....
That's raycis! EBT card holders are entitled to new cars at 84 or 96 month terms or whatever it takes. I'm calling the SPLC!
This type of behavior will just hasten the decline of the financial system. If I read one more time that the problems in the world are due to too much savings, I'm going to puke. If there is so much savings, why do we have to keep lowering rates and credit standards to encourage people to borrow to buy more stuff?
Some see it as foolish, and/or desperate on the part of the banksters.
However, when one considers who ends up in possession of the collateral when the whole scheme goes south, another picture emerges.
The banksters need to repay us.
Can you see Zion now?
Sweet! I going to buy 2 cars tonight!
This whole gas and electric bill thingy really inhibits attempts at credit growth in most of Detroit.
Don't worry. In Detroit they will soon have a new product. Collateral will be determined on the number of street dogs in the vicinity of your dwelling space. Street dogs = protein. That's worth some points right there!
The Nationwide Demolition Derby is on!
Demolition Derbies. I miss the 70's so fucking much!
Long flatbed trucks.
http://www.salvagetrucksauction.com/quick_pick/Repossession
Booming.
Why do we keep getting articles about poor people? The problem is rich people.
There are not 100 million lazy out of work people. There are 100 million victims of evil decisions by rich people who have all the money and power.
Blaming powerless poor people for the crimes of powerful rich people is highly sociopathic.
How long do you get to keep the car before the Repo man snatches it. I need some wheels to get me to PA and back for the summer.
This is GREAT news for people with cash who want to buy vehicles cheap because inevitably the subprime auto loan bubble will burst and then there will be MILLIONS of repossessed vehicles flooding the market and prices will DROP !
I will be buying 4 vehicles myself to round out my fleet.
The Powers That Were (PTW) trying to re-boot their former energy-harvesting scheme by harvesting energy from humans via contracts.
soylent green might be an easier approach for harvesting energy from humans...
It's "The Matrix." It's not even metaphorical.
Wow that APR sucks.
Rates will be raised my fucking smelly brown streaked pimple covered ass. All signs point otherwise.
Indeed. At this point they actually are dropping helicopter-loads of money.
we make up for the losses with volume!
And if those losses get to be too much we will blackmail CONgress for a bailout, for the nations own good of course.
is the new 550 the old 720?
If that's true, then what is my recent 743 ????
Pleeeeaase! I am tired of googling to find someone who will lend me 100% so I can buy a home! I don't want to live in Hicksville so don't refer me to the USDA. I'm not a vet so I don't qualify. When is the FHA lightening the down payment requirements? I'm tired of waiting since 2008. /sarc/
For the most part (>90%) of our ponzi money system now is based upon issuance of credit. Credit = growth due to principle PLUS interest being required. The payback is larger than the initial credit offering.
Credit HAS to be issued, otherwise the system will freeze up as in any ponzi.
Reform will have to be undertaken at some point. There will be no choice.
If this doesn’t work out, they can always turn next to the Facebook “Popularity Score” for approving loans, which the company is developing to attract more advertising business from banks and other types of businesses. “The Popularity Score will be based on a variety of internal measures of our users activity”, said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. That includes their “Like” ratio, personal video views, average number of post comments, cross links to dating websites, results of NSA inquiries, etc. “The way we see it”, says Zuckerberg, ”if you’re popular you should be able to borrow money cheaper, get a better job, drive a nicer car, and take nicer vacations than less popular people. It’s only fair. Hell, look at me, I got a 1% mortgage from my bank”.
Full disclosure, 4/1.
Lipstick on a pig...
I really don't get this, I think that this article is not really stating the "true purpose" of this new credit score.
The fact of the matter is that creditors are ALREADY so desperate to lend to you, that the FICO score is a joke, I know people that "strategically defaulted" on 60k in loans, and another that had a bank repo on their boat, and both their scores are already back in the 700+ range. Unless you have a formal BK, whatever unfortunate thing you do to your credit score can be fixed in a hurry.
I think this is really the "illegal alien" score, to help get loans out to people otherwise invisible to the banking system, nothing more.
These people will default in droves and end this experiment fairly quickly.
I think what this tells us is that it doesn't matter to the finance system if people pay their debt or not. That's not where they make their money. They're making their money re-selling the debt many times over. There's no legitimate demand, so they quite literally can't give the money away. So they change their own rules to open up new ranges of holes to dump their money into.
Yes - fantastic- banks are going to make loans to half wits, dead beats and dog dicks.
ASK THE QUESTION TYLER!!!!!
WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD THEY DO SUCH A THING??????
Let me tell you why:
HOW HIGH OIL PRICES WILL PERMANENTLY CAP ECONOMIC GROWTH For most of the last century, cheap oil powered global economic growth. But in the last decade, the price of oil has quadrupled, and that shift will permanently shackle the growth potential of the world’s economies. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-09-23/how-high-oil-prices-will-permanently-cap-economic-growth
BUT WE NEED HIGH OIL PRICES: The marginal cost of the 50 largest oil and gas producers globally increased to US$92/bbl in 2011, an increase of 11% y-o-y and in-line with historical average CAGR growth. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2012/05/02/983171/marginal-oil-production-costs-are-heading-towards-100barrel/
Or in other words, growth stopped soon after the cost of extracting a barrel of oil started a steady upwards climb.
And governments and central banks are frantically --- DESPERATELY ---- doing anything that can hold off the total and utter collapse of civilization.
This includes QE ZIRP fixing markets liar loans subprime auto loans student loans to any and all 0 down home loans etc etc etc etc
CONNECT THE DOTS:
WHEN DID THIS ALL START?
IT STARTED WHEN OIL PRICES WENT FROM A LOW OF $12 IN 1998 AND WAS TRIPLED JUST A FEW YEARS LATER https://economatters.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/crude-oil-prices-by-the...
That is when the fun and games began --- growth was cratering -- so the PTB decided to hose the economy with low interest money KNOWING FUCKING WELL that this would create a bubble.
BUT WHAT CHOICES DID THEY HAVE?
You cannot just stand by and watch the world collapse. You do what you can to kick that fucking can.
And they continue to do everything possible to kick the can. But as we know --- the can cannot go on forever --- the road will end --- at a cliff.
THE CLIFF IS APPROACHING.
It really is amusing to watch Zero Hedge cheer for the end of civilization --- when in fact they should be cheering every dollar euro yen pound etc that comes off the printing press... every loan to every bum on the planet...
Because these are the only things between each and every one of us --- and DEATH
Newsflash to Magooo: "NO ONE gets out of here alive!"
"If they can fog a mirror, fund them". Angelo Mozilo Country Wide Financial.
NOTE: It looks like American Exceptionalism is the default strategy, eh.
This ought to end well IMO.
[Ignore, MOU beat me to it.]
We un-FICO'd some people.
I'll take 10 McMansions, 12 BMWs, 3 Harley-Davidson motorcycles, 7 ship cruises to the Caribbean, 5 65" flatscreens, and 6 student loans for Harvard please.
Volume Hides Sin
Think about this, all supporters of fiat. Who would be so anxious to lend money to people who won't pay you back in a world where "money" cannot be created at zero cost out of thin air?
Of Course
This has got to be an April Fool joke.
THE SECRET MEMO AT THE HEART OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS PROVES THE CRISIS WAS PURPOSELY PERPETUATED BY THE ROTHCHILD FEDERAL RESERVE BANKERS TO STEAL THE WORLD'S MONEY. SO WHY NOT GET OUR MONEY BACK?
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet.
The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers.
The memo is authentic.
I had to fly to Geneva to get confirmation and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalisation, told me,
“The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people... We don’t have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating.”
Then I showed him the memo.
It begins with Larry Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the Bank bigshots to order their lobbyist armies to march:
“As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…”
To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed the private lines of what were then the five most powerful CEOs on the planet. And here they are:
Goldman Sachs: John Corzine
Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski
Bank of America: David Coulter
Citibank: John Reed
Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley
The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks.
Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: “derivatives trading”. JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as “assets”.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.
But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?
The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet -- in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.
The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement (or FSA), an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organisation.
The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora’s box of worldwide derivatives trade. Among the notorious transactions legalised: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been co-chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation. Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots. Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans. Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim – and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.
http://www.parenting-healthy-children.com/News3.html
Let's not forget the other business FICO is trying to build and emulate the credit scoring game, the FICO medication aherence score where they want it to be just like a credit score. In other words in healthcare, you'll get to carry that score around with you and be "secretly" scored.
Both myself and the World Privacy Forum folks are all over this all the time as it's pushed by drug companies for one. Drug sales are down, let's get a FICO study to blame that on consumers. They don't tell you what the parameters are of their "scoring" but it's a secret and most never know they have been scored. FICO markets this stating "all they need is a name and an address" and they can derive a score from zero to 500 one anyone and of course they are using some data broker info as well in the mix.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/its-time-to-look-at-some-of-proprietary.html
There's a lot of flawed data out there and myself I'm listed in a data base that is sold by folks don't even know who they are. They have me as a known person who takes blood thinners and nothing could be farther from the truth, never have. Watch out for that other arm of FICO as it's all about selling data. FICO of course wants to keep selling your credit data too. Why is is easier to get a credit card? They have the big side business of selling all your transactions and even the Feds are buying your credit card transactions so that makes up for some of the defaults so they can continue to take risks as they will make money from selling your data, whether it's good or bad. Here's a company that skirts under the Fed laws and sells both your credit card transactions and other data to banks, insurers and so forth and yup they query and score you again when adding a FICO score to the mix.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/argus-analytics-produces-share-of.html
It's the secret scoring of America, a World Privacy Report that keeps inequality growing in the US and keeps all in debt.
Not too long ago Zero Hedge reported on the high cost of generic drugs. Don't believe everything you read as this week United Healthcare bought a pharmacy benefit manager and Health IT outfit that is being sued by independent pharmacies for jacking up the price of generic prescriptions. You won't see that side of the story in the major news outlets at all. Catamaran and United have both been using each other's scoring algorithms so a match made in heaven with complex algorithms that will make sure generic drugs are still expensive. It's what United has done for years via a subsidiary called Ingenix, now called Optum RX. What's interesting too is trace back Catamaran the the Heatlh IT companies they purchased and you go right back to software that Walgreens used to use for drug management with pharmacies.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/united-healthcare-buys-catamaran.html
It was just a couple months ago that the independent pharmacists after filing their class action lawsuit testified in front of Congress on how PBM business models keep generic drugs on the expensive side and there's the whole story at the link on how they inflate what insurers pay and then get it down to where pharmacies can't make a buck when filling the prescription so prices go up. When you fill a prescription the FICO medication scoring software is hard at work, right at the Pharmacy Benefit company and of course at some point with "scoring" your regular FICO credit numbers get added to the batch as well. It's the Killer Algorithms at work again.
Be aware of this other bogus FICO Medication Score they are trying to get in the mainstream as well. A few million people have been scored already and you can read about the FICO Med scoring on their website as well. Scoring has gone way over the top. In the heatlhcare news we get the big story that FICO is now a big hero of sorts with taking out medical bills that show bad scores but remember you hardly ever get admitted to a hospital anymore without them also checking your FICO credit score. This is becoming more common place as insurers are shifting more expense to the consumers to pay so the hospital wants that credit data too.
Another point worth a mention too is that TD Bank now authorized Acxiom, the big personal data broker, to issue credit cards too, so when TD Bank gives out a Mastercard or Visa, the resources of the data broker are being used in the mix and so much of their data about us is flawed.
medical, will visit your blog,,many on ZH will not understand what you posted,, too bad..great post.
Barney Frank heaven
"America’s underbanked citizens"
I have to puke! There is no such thing as being underbanked. Overbanked is anybody who has anything to do with a bank. Especially one of the too-big-to-jail banks.