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Most large Brazilian institutions working with credit concession use credit models to evaluate the risk of consumer loans. Any improvement in the techniques that may bring about greater precision of a prediction model will provide financial returns to the institution. The first phase of this study introduces concepts of credit and risk. Subsequently, with a sample set of applicants from a large Brazilian financial institution, three credit scoring models are built applying these distinct techniques: Logistic Regression, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms. Finally, the quality and performance of these models are evaluated and compared to identify the best. Results obtained by the logistic regression and neural network models are good and very similar, although the first is slightly better. Results obtained with the genetic algorithm model are also good, but somewhat inferior. This study shows the procedures to be adopted by a financial institution to identify the best credit model to evaluate the risk of consumer loans. Use of the best fitted model will favor the definition of an adequate business strategy thereby increasing profits.