Make your personalized home page for credit reporting agencies

We collect personal data from companies that offer financial products or services to consumers, like loans, financial or investment advice, or insurance. This includes banks, mortgage lenders, loan brokers, some financial or investment advisors, insurance companies, and debt collectors.

Businesses must first establish an account with the credit bureau and then begin transferring consumer information to that service. To ensure that the business knows how to report information accurately, the various credit bureaus conduct inspections before signing a reporting contract with the business.

Credit bureaus collect biographical data to confirm your identity, like your Social Security number and address, and they review public records for financial information as well. It is common for a credit event to appear on one bureaus report but not the others.

Businesses must first establish an account with the credit bureau and then begin transferring consumer information to that service. To ensure that the business knows how to report information accurately, the various credit bureaus conduct inspections before signing a reporting contract with the business.

However, Experian says that card issuers commonly report a cardholders data at the end of each billing cycle. In actuality, every lender reports to the bureaus following its own schedule, ing to Experian, and it typically happens every 30 to 45 days.

Credit bureaus receive information from your lenders, creditors and others. Some creditors report to both bureaus, but some may report to only one or none at all.

Of the three main credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), none is considered better than the others. A lender may rely on a report from one bureau or all three bureaus to make its decisions about approving a loan.

Q: Where do credit bureaus get their information? A: Credit bureaus get information from your creditors, such as a bank, credit card issuer, or auto finance company. They also get information about you from public records, such as property or court records.

Your employment history may be listed on your credit report if you provided information about where you work to a creditor. Lenders typically ask for employer information on credit applications to help verify your identity but theyre not obligated to report your job history to the credit bureaus.

Once every 30 days, information about a consumers ongoing credit activity is relayed directly by their creditors to the three national consumer reporting agencies separately. The consumer reporting agencies receive, compile, and maintain the history provided by the creditors and lenders.