The Price You Pay
What exactly is a high or low price? For most loans, you pay interest in return for the ability to borrow money. With risk based pricing, you pay more or less interest depending on your risk (or the lender’s opinion of your risk). If you’re a safe bet and the lender is all but certain you’ll repay, you’ll qualify for the best products and lower interest rates.
Risk Based Pricing Factors
Lenders look at a variety of factors when evaluating risk. Your credit is an important part of any risk based pricing decision. But lenders may look at much more -- loan to value ratios, debt to income ratios, and other factors unrelated to your loan and credit score. For example, the length of time you've worked at your job can make you appear more or less risky.
Is Risk Based Pricing Fair?
Risk based pricing is criticized by some as a predatory practice. Instead of denying credit to people who don’t qualify and shouldn’t borrow, lenders can just charge extremely high prices. Unsophisticated borrowers don’t know that they have bad credit, and they don’t know what it costs them.
On the other hand, risk based pricing gives people an opportunity they otherwise would not have had. Instead of being denied, they’re told "you can borrow, but it’ll cost you." If everybody is aware of how the system works, it seems fair enough. Regulators want to be sure that borrowers understand when they pay more under risk based pricing, so they now require lenders to notify borrowers who pay higher prices.
Risk Based Pricing Example
Consider a case where you want to buy a home. The Federal Citizen Information Center provides an example in the publication Your Credit Score. Borrowers with bad credit pay 3% per year more (in terms of APR) on their loan than borrowers with good credit, leading to a higher monthly payment and larger lifetime interest costs. Interest rates constantly change, but you can get up to date numbers at MyFico.com.
To see how your loan might be affected, find out how your interest rate would change with a different credit score. Then, use a loan amortization calculator to see how your monthly payment and interest costs would change. Now you can put a price on good credit.
