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The three major credit reporting bureaus in the United States are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They compile credit reports on individuals, which they sell to prospective lenders and others. The three bureaus can have somewhat different information in their reports, depending on which creditors provide it to them.

When are credit reports updated? Your credit reports are updated when lenders provide new information to the nationwide credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) for your accounts. This usually happens once a month, or at least every 45 days. However, some lenders may update more frequently than this.

A credit reporting agency (also called a credit bureau or credit agency) is a private company that collects and sells information about a person or corporations identifying information, debt, and repayment history in order to create credit reports and credit scores indicating the creditworthiness of each person or

How Many Credit Reporting Agencies Are There? Youre probably familiar with the three main credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Did you know there are actually six agencies? The additional four agencies are PRBC, SageStream, Advanced Resolution Service (ARS), and Innovis.

Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are the main nationwide credit bureaus, but they arent the only bureaus or consumer reporting companies. Innovis is sometimes called the fourth credit bureau, and it similarly collects consumers credit data.

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.

There is no best credit bureauall three bureaus can offer helpful information and tools to help you make financial decisions.

Much of the discussion of credit bureaus focuses on the three most commonly used agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. However, theres another bureau you may need to know about. Innovis is actually one of several companies that gathers, stores and publishes credit file information.

SageStream, LLC is a credit reporting agency that provides consumer reports and scores regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and is now part of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. LexisNexis Risk Solutions provides information solutions to businesses and government to help them predict and manage risk.

The credit bureaus are publicly traded companies owned by their shareholders. Although they are not government-operated, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.