The news: Experian has increased its price on mortgage credit score reports sold to lenders on top of report prices that are already going up.

Zoom out: FICO and the credit bureaus are in a war that hasn’t yet lowered prices. After four years of increases, the cost of credit scores for mortgage lenders will rise up to 50% this year. In October, FICO introduced a new model for pricing and licensing its score to tri-merge resellers, including increasing some costs that trickle down to lenders. Tri-merge resellers are not offering the updated score model FICO’s launched in October, and VantageScore 4.0 is not yet live, which may be partly responsible for lender costs.

Implications for lenders: The cost of acquiring and packaging data is rising as it comes from more sources. And its purported value justifies higher prices and margins. But the pricing moves and public policy driving the shakeout in the credit scoring market are influencing it in ways that have not yet played out.

Lenders face higher costs as prices rise and have limited flexibility. They can absorb the credit score expense, pass it on to borrowers, or tweak their models to reduce how often they pull credit reports—but none of these is painless. Lenders may need to switch systems and processes. New credit scoring models, which lenders are not accustomed to using, may make their credit scoring costs higher in the near term.