“Classic FICO” may soon have a more nostalgic ring to it.

In a Tuesday afternoon X post, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte said his agency is in talks to add the newer FICO 10T to the approved credit scoring models for loans delivered to government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“This would be great for consumers and the safety of the mortgage market, to have both FICO 10T Score and VantageScore 4.0,” Pulte wrote. “Stay tuned! Very close to a deal.”

FICO did not immediately respond to Scotsman Guide’s request for comment.

Pulte previously shook up the mortgage credit scoring landscape in July when he announced that lenders would be allowed to use VantageScore 4.0, a tri-bureau credit scoring model from VantageScore Solutions, a company jointly owned by the major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

The FHFA chief touted VantageScore’s incorporation of rent payment data when it is available in a consumer’s credit file, writing on social media that the agency was “expanding credit access to millions of forgotten Americans — people who live in rural areas, renters who pay their rent on time every month.”

Previously, only Classic FICO was approved for Fannie and Freddie loans. FICO 10T, which launched in 2020, uses trended credit bureau data to assess how a borrower’s creditworthiness has evolved.

FICO 10T was validated and approved for use by Fannie and Freddie in 2022, but it was never officially implemented by the mortgage giants.

In a white paper released in July, FICO maintained that its 10T model is five times better than VantageScore 4.0 at detecting loan losses when compared to Classic FICO, citing an independent third-party study conducted by the Urban Institute.

VantageScore shot back with an analysis claiming that VantageScore 4.0 “demonstrates substantially superior performance over the incumbent monopoly Classic FICO model.” The analysis noted that VantageScore did not compare its model to FICO 10T due to insufficient data released publicly by FICO.

In an interview with Scotsman Guide conducted shortly after those competing studies were released, Pulte stressed that the primary driver behind the FHFA’s credit score reforms is expanding competition as a fulfillment of the Credit Score Competition Act, which was signed into law in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.