[ensignavenger]

There is an interesting dynamic here, one government agency, the FHFA, dictates that mortgage brokers have to use FICO and all three major credit bureaus, explicitly granting these companies a government enforced monopoly. Another government agency with different goals, the CFPB, comes in and complains about the price these government granted monopolies are charging and proposes regulation to limit it.

These dueling agencies may eventually find a balance, with the FHFA dictating which companies services have to be used and the CFPB dictating how much those services can charge...

The whole thing is a failure not of free markets but of different government regulators not coordinating their regulations.