The lesser known VantageScore made another inroad in its battle with the almighty Fico score, grabbing a patent for its system of “characteristic leveling.”

In short, characteristic leveling provides consistency among the 3 major credit bureaus, something the traditional Fico score has struggled with (why credit scores are different?)

So if the same data is presented by different credit bureaus, it should yield the same result, or credit score.

“The ability to use a common score across the three CRCs minimizes consumer and lender confusion,” said VantageScore Solutions President and Chief Executive Officer Barrett Burns, in a press release.

“Because of VantageScore’s consistency across all three CRCs, lenders who use it will be better able to delineate risk in a predictive manner.”

This is pretty important because many banks and mortgage lenders currently rely on the middle of our 3 credit scores when making a decision to extend credit.

And borrowers have to worry about disparities between their credit scores, which are often the result of different reporting by bureaus using the same data.

In fact, many consumers have such a wide range of scores that they may be deemed excellent by one, and only average by another.

The hope is that with characteristic leveling in place, differences in credit score will only be attributable to different data sets, as opposed to differing scoring algorithms.

This increased consistency could lure more creditors over to VantageScore, which is currently a small fish compared to the all-powerful Fico score.

Recently, Fico also lost the trademark on its 300-850 credit score range.

Australians are increasingly using their mobile phones to shop for bargains online, new figures from eBay show.

The online auction site has named Australia as one of its fastest-growing international mobile markets after shoppers spent more than $13 million buying eBay items on their handsets in a single month last year.

Speaking to National Features, Jenny Thomas, eBays Australian spokeswoman, reported that more than 87,000 Australians made purchases on eBay using their mobiles in July 2010, up from 44,000 in January 2010.

“We are just seeing more and more people using their mobile phone as a way of shopping online and we absolutely expect that to grow incredibly over 2011,” she said in the article, hosted on news.com.au.

Consumers aiming to boost their spending power could also choose to compare credit cards and other money products in search of the best options. Read full article…

With credit card companies desperately vying for the attention of prospective customers, there have never been more rewards credit card offers available on the market. Fortunately, the majority of rewards credit cards provide some form of benefit or discount which can be extremely advantageous when one is planning for or is enjoying a vacation. The following are five ways that a rewards credit card can save money on a vacation.

1. Gasoline Discounts

Some credit cards, commonly known as gas rewards cards, provide a specific rebate percentage for each gasoline purchase. At the end of the rewards period, a check or certificate is mailed to the cardholder for the total amount of all of the rebates applied to the account during that year.

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Millions of Americans will gather to watch the Super Bowl this coming Sunday, but not everyone will be solely interested in the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. The commercials routinely draw hoards of viewers, itching to see the latest offerings from known brands, like Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz and . . . Groupon?

The media darling and supplier of digital coupons to millions around the globe will air its own commercial during the game this year, highlighting the company’s ascendancy from relatively unknown startup to a prominent fixture in the zeitgeist. Read full article…

Reporting from San Francisco —

On “The Tonight Show,” Conan O’Brien used to get big laughs for mocking Twitter as an egotistical stream of mundane updates from celebrities.

But when he got bounced from his late-night gig at NBC, O’Brien could no longer take to the airwaves to reach his fans, so Twitter became his open hailing frequency. He later thanked Twitter “for saving my ass.”

O’Brien isn’t the only one who is tapping Twitter’s mass-media potential. The social network, which will celebrate its five-year anniversary in March, last year signed up more than 100 million people who sent more than 25 billion updates called tweets.

Twitter Inc. gained another key following in December: investors who competed for the opportunity to pour $200 million into the company, nearly quadrupling its worth to $3.7 billion. T

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