Because it’s focused on predicting how resilient a person’s credit may be in the event of an economic downturn, the index uses credit bureau information only.
To create the index, FICO evaluated hundreds of thousands of anonymous credit profiles from several points in time—including before and after the Great Recession. We looked for patterns in consumers’ profiles who ended up missing or making payments in the Great Recession. Consumers who were considered more sensitive to financial stress presented a greater risk of default while the consumers that were considered more resilient were more likely to continue to make on-time payments.
If your credit profile looks similar to those that were considered more resilient, your FICO Resilience Index will likely be lower.
The index has a range of 1-99, where lower values indicate a person may be more resilient in the event of an economic downturn.