Credit Reporting Agency

What Is a Credit Reporting Agency?

A credit reporting agency is a business that keeps up with historical credit data on individuals and businesses. They receive reports from lenders and different sources, ordered in a credit report that incorporates a credit score when issued. They may likewise be alluded to as a credit reporting bureau.

Understanding Credit Reporting Agencies

Credit reporting agencies fill different needs in the credit industry. They keep up with credit data, work out credit scores, give credit reports, and partner with credit issuers for marketing.

Credit reporting agencies receive different types of data which can be remembered for their offerings for customers. Credit reporting agencies are generally one of two sorts: reporting either on individuals or on businesses. The biggest consumer credit reporting agencies are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Experian additionally does commercial reporting, alongside Dun and Bradstreet.

Credit agencies can receive an extensive variety of data and data remembered for a credit report. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are the three biggest credit reporting suppliers in the United States. They are known for getting standard credit data and giving far reaching credit reports on a borrower's fundamental credit history. They set industry standards for reporting and scoring philosophies.

Various other credit reporting agencies likewise exist past the biggest three. Extensively, lenders work with credit reporting agencies to receive tweaked reports, including specific data which impacts a credit decision. Credit reporting agencies can partner with a great many companies to receive a wide range of credit data for their customers.

Credit Data

Past fundamental credit account data, many credit reporting agencies likewise receive public records and extra payment data on cell telephone bills, utility bills, and rent payments. Several new credit reporting agencies are working to give greater access to the underbanked population by creating credit reports for flimsy record borrowers in light of alternative data as opposed to just credit accounts.

Credit Reports versus Credit Scores

Credit reports follow a standard organization that incorporates a trade line for each credit account laid out by a borrower. Trade lines show the amount of credit issued, a borrower's regularly scheduled payments, and any delinquent payments. Delinquent payments are reported to a credit agency after two successive missed payments. Subsequently delinquent credit history on a trade line will ordinarily start with a 60 days past due report, followed by 90 days, 120 days, etc. Trade lines likewise show charge-offs in the event that a borrower defaults.

Trade lines can be reported for many accounts. They generally incorporate credit accounts, yet they may likewise incorporate itemized events, for example, cell telephone payments, utility payments, tax debt, or bankruptcy. Many credit reporting agencies likewise group impromptu things separate from a trade line to give extensive miscellaneous subtleties.

Most adverse things reported on a credit report will stay there for quite a long time. Different things, like liquidations, are incorporated for a considerable length of time.

Oversight of all credit reporting agency activities is administered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Special Considerations

Credit reporting agencies partner with a great many financial institutions in the industry, including credit card companies, banks, and credit unions. Financial institutions get credit reports on individuals and businesses through hard requests that remember a credit score and point by point data for individual trade line accounts. Financial institutions partner with credit reporting agencies to give target marketing records, and soft asks for prequalification endorsements.

Features

• Financial institutions frequently partner with credit reporting agencies, as Equifax and others, to give target marketing arrangements of possible customers and soft asks for prequalification endorsements on credit cards or personal loans.
• Credit reporting bureau is one more name for a credit reporting agency.
• A credit reporting agency keeps up with historical credit data on individuals and businesses.
• The most notable credit reporting agencies in the U.S. are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.