What Do the 3 Credit Bureaus Do?

Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are the main credit bureaus that collect information to generate your credit reports, but they vary in how they calculate your credit scores.

They measure the likelihood we will pay our credit obligations and especially on time. We will dig into these 3 bureaus and what they do.

Equifax

Based in Atlanta it has been in business since 1899 and it operates or has investments in 24 countries. Equifax offers credit fraud protection and identity theft to consumers and sells credit reports to businesses.

Experian

They support clients in more than 40 countries and it was named ‘World’s most innovative companies” by Forbes in 2018. It promotes itself as “the leading global information services company.”

TransUnion

Based in Chicago they also have a presence in many countries around the world, and also offer identity and credit monitoring services. They market themselves as “a global information and insights company that makes trust possible”.

There are more credit bureaus, although smaller, that can track consumer and business credit information like CoreLogic Teletrack, Innovis, ChexSystems, and more.

What Credit Bureaus Do”

They have an array of products and services but they perform the same things when monitoring consumer credit information. They manage the information differently that’s why results are different from each other since they operate independently. The credit score assigned to you by them is most likely the FICO score or VantageScore, but FICO is very useful since 90% of lenders use it.

The federal government has the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that regulates how the bureaus must operate and are monitored by the FTC.

You can read here how to dispute incorrect information.