I started reading the Focus Report [Oct. 13 issue] guest opinionarticle entitled “How to Use the Best Predictive Tools to ReviveMortgage Lending” by Joanne Gaskin of FICO. I hoped I would learnmore about FICO's tools and how my credit union ($3 billion inassets, $900 million mortgage portfolio, approximately the 30thlargest CU in the country) can improve mortgage lending.

I then realized just how little FICO understands the creditunion business. When Gaskin wrote, “We found that a typical creditunion originating 500,000 mortgages a year using a score cutoff ofabout 620 could save $62 million more than they could be using thegeneral-risk score,” it illustrated how much FICO is out of touchwith our industry.

Five-hundred thousand mortgages a year? Did she mean the typicalmega-bank? As I said, we're about the 30th largest credit union inthe country. In our primary market, we're the second largestmortgage lender on the basis of number of loans closed per month.We funded $450 million in mortgage loans last year-a record forus-which equated to about 3,000 loans.