The credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - announced Tuesday that they're introducing VantageScore to banks, mortgage lenders and credit card companies immediately. The new scores will be available to consumers after the lender rollout, probably later this year.

''There's clearly been a need out there to have a consistent scoring model that works across all three reporting agencies' data,'' said Kerry Williams, group president of Experian's credit services division. ''And consumers need a consistent score that they can understand and use in their own financial lives.''

Credit scores traditionally have been three-digit numbers that lenders used to evaluate the creditworthiness of borrowers. The scores reflect how much debt a consumer is carrying, how good they've been at paying back loans and how many credit applications they have outstanding.

They're important because lenders use them to determine if they'll loan money to consumers and at what rate. The higher the score, the more creditworthy the consumer is considered to be and the lower the interest rate the consumer will be charged.

The agencies in the past each used their own proprietary formulas to generate their own scores, meaning that a lender dealing with a consumer's application for a credit card or a mortgage might have to reconcile three widely different scores.

With the new system, a single methodology will be used to create the scores for all three credit bureaus, the agencies said.

As a result, scores will be ''virtually the same across all three of the national credit reporting companies,'' said Experian spokesman Donald Girard. Any difference in the scores provided by each agency will reflect differences in the data they've collected in consumers' files, he said.

The credit reporting agencies said in their announcement that VantageScore ''will provide consumers and businesses with a highly predictive, consistent score that is easy to understand and apply.''

Orem financial adviser Larry Ruff said he supports the new initiative, given the fact that many consumers are confused about credit scores and part of that confusion stems from the different scoring systems used by the three bureaus.

"Every single financial decision is affected by your credit score," Ruff said. "It's such a smart move that is long overdue."

Some consumer advocacy groups, though, have expressed concern that the new scoring system would not eliminate one of the biggest problems in the industry: incorrect information in consumers' credit files.

''That means it's a new recipe, but the same old ingredients,'' said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection with the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America in Washington, D.C. ''It doesn't address the underlying accuracy of the credit reports on which the scores are based.''

In addition to the credit agency scores, some large lenders generate their own internal scores, often using credit bureau data. And many lenders, especially those in the mortgage business, use FICO scores, which are named for the Minneapolis-based Fair, Isaac Corp. that developed them.

Dana Wiklund, senior vice president for predictive sciences at Equifax, said only time will tell if VantageScore replaces some of these in-house or generic scores being used in the financial services industry.

VantageScore is being independently marketed and sold separately through each of the three national credit reporting companies through licensing agreements with VantageScore Solutions LLC, the joint announcement said. The spokesmen said that VantageScore was jointly owned by the three credit bureaus. They said it did not yet have a headquarters, although an informational Web site had been set up at www.vantagescore.com.

The credit reporting agencies are operated by Equifax Inc. of Atlanta; Experian Information Solutions Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif.; and TransUnion LLC of Chicago.

About the new VantageScore

CREDIT SCORES: The major consumer credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - create a unified credit scoring system that features ''a more consistent and objective approach.''

WHAT IT MEANS TO CONSUMERS: Credit scores given to lenders will be much more uniform; it should speed up the loan approval process.

WHEN CAN I GET IT? The credit bureaus showed the new system to federal banking regulators on Monday and began rolling it out to banks, mortgage brokers, credit unions and other financial institutions for evaluation on Tuesday. Consumers aren't likely to start getting detailed information about the new scores - or access to them - until later this year.