TransUnion Launches Industry-First Fraud Scores That Can Legally Support Credit Denials
The new Credit Washing and Synthetic Fraud Scores include FCRA-compliant adverse action reason codes, with Oscilar as first integrator.
TransUnion launched Credit Washing Score and Synthetic Fraud Score, which the company describes as the industry's first fraud scores that can be formally cited in adverse action notices under US credit law FCRA and ECOA. Previous fraud scores were built from signals outside the consumer report framework, such as device, IP and behavioural data, so they could not produce legally valid reason codes when lenders denied credit. The new scores are built from FCRA-regulated data.
TransUnion estimates US lender exposure to synthetic identity fraud at $2.4 billion as of June 2026, and reports consumers whose charge-offs were "washed" are 3.5 times more likely to charge off again on new accounts. Risk-decisioning platform Oscilar is the first integrator, combining the scores and their reason codes into a single credit decisioning workflow. The release signals a broader shift toward fraud signals that must be auditable and explainable to consumers.