Credit reporting industry

Overview
The U.S. credit reporting industry consists primarily of three national CRAs that maintain a wide range of information on approximately 200 million consumers. Creditors and others voluntarily submit information to these centralized, nationwide repositories of information. This information is then consolidated into consumer reports and credit reports. Users of credit reports analyze the data and other information to assess the risk posed by credit applicants, often using sophisticated predictive models called credit scores.

This flow of information enables credit grantors and others to make fast and generally reliable decisions about a consumer’s eligibility for various products and services, allowing consumers to obtain credit within minutes of applying. The CRAs obtain records related to consumers' credit history from data furnishers including creditors, collection agencies, and public sources. There are roughly 30,000 data furnishers that provide this information on a voluntary basis. Each record is attached to identifying information such as name, Social Security number ("SSN"), address, or birth date. The CRAs organize these records into "files," which refer to all data that the CRA believes belong to the same person. The CRAs attempt to maintain exactly one file for every credit-using consumer and to include as many of that consumer's accounts and other records in the file as possible.