Credit score

A credit report is the record a bureau keeps: the accounts a person has, their balances and limits, and how the payments on them have gone. A credit score is a number a scoring model computes from that record. The CFPB describes it as a prediction of credit behavior, such as how likely someone is to pay a loan back on time, based on information from the credit reports (Ask CFPB, read September 2026).

FICO publishes the weights of its base score's five categories (myFICO, read September 2026): payment history 35%, amounts owed 30%, length of credit history 15%, credit mix 10% and new credit 10%. Payment history is whether past accounts were paid on time; amounts owed covers balances and how much of the available credit is in use; credit mix is the spread across cards, installment loans and mortgages; new credit is accounts opened recently.

There is more than one score. Three bureaus each keep a report, and FICO and VantageScore each publish models, so the same person carries several numbers at once, and a lender picks which one it reads. The formula inside a model is not published; the weights are what FICO states.

One part of the amounts-owed category is plain arithmetic: the share of credit in use. A card with a $4,500 balance on a $10,000 limit is at 45% utilization. A $1,500 payment leaves $3,000 on the same limit, 30%.

The ratio is the part that can be worked on paper. How many points that change is worth is the model's decision, and FICO does not publish it.

Balance

$4,500

Payment

− $1,500

Balance after the payment

$3,000

Limit

÷ $10,000

Credit utilization

30%

A lender reads the score before it sets the terms of a loan, and a mortgage or auto loan is often quoted by score band, so the number reaches the APR on the next debt. On the example's $3,000 card balance, a month's interest at a 24% APR is $60; at 18% it is $45.

Amounts owed is the category that moves with each month's balances and limits, which is why the utilization figure is the part of a score a household can see on its own statements.

Taiga Finance shows no credit score and connects to no credit bureau. Nothing in the app reads a credit report, and no page holds a FICO or VantageScore number.

What it shows is the utilization figure behind the amounts-owed category. Once a credit card account has a “Limit” on file, the account's drawer shows a “Utilization” bar with the percent, the balance and the limit, and the Debt page's rail adds a “Credit lines” block with “Available credit” and “Utilization” across the cards with a limit. No verdict is attached to the figure.