Get to know more about the companies who control you financial future. Business Credit Reportsin Agency Secret Revealed

1. Meet the Companies Who
Control Your Financial Future…
Business Credit Reporting
Agency Secrets Revealed…

2. Ty Crandall, CEO
(877) 600-2487
www.CreditSuite.com
info@creditsuite.com
Grab Your Free Guide to Building Business Credit
www.CreditSuite.com/ein

3. Business Credit
• Just as you have personal credit that’s linked to
your SSN, your business also has its own credit
profile linked to the business EIN
• This credit profile is completely separate from
your consumer credit profile
• There are 3 main business reporting agencies
which congregate data and offer it to anyone who
will pay as part of your business credit report

4. Business Credit Reporting Agencies
• The 3 main business reporting agencies are
Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Commercial, and
Equifax Commercial
• D&B is by far the largest with 10 times more
records than the next biggest… which is
Experian

5. Business Credit Reporting Agencies
• There are other business credit reporting
companies other than Experian, D&B, and
Equifax
• But they’re not used much by the majority of
credit issuers and lenders and a business
owner won’t need to worry too much about
them

6. Business Credit Reporting Agencies
• Dun & Bradstreet is the most common
reporting agency, and is used by most vendors
to extend lines of credit
• Landlords use them to approve office leases as
well
• Experian is used by many credit card
companies and non-traditional business
lenders

7. Business Credit Reporting Agencies
• Equifax is called the “Small Business Financial
Exchange” and is the most important for cash
lenders such as banks
• You should focus on building credit with all 3
because to concentrate on one and not the
others is to have lopsided credibility

8. Dun & Bradstreet
• Dun and Bradstreet is the biggest and major
business credit reporting agency
• Commonly known as D&B, the agency provides
information on businesses and corporations for
use in credit decisions
• Dun and Bradstreet is a publically
traded company with a
headquarters in Short Hills New
Jersey, and trades on the New
York Stock Exchange

9. Dun & Bradstreet
• D&B currently holds the largest supply
worldwide of business information, with over
250 million business records on file
• D&B tracks company data worldwide,
collecting data on businesses across 132
countries

10. D&B Office Locations Worldwide
• Dun & Bradstreet has had offices in Australia
since 1887
• New Zealand since 1903
• Mexico since 1896
• Argentina since 1911
• Venezuela since 1920
• Brazil since 1933
• Peru since 1981
• It has several offices in India as well, with its head
office in Mumbai

11. Dun & Bradstreet
• D&B roots can be tracked all the way back to
1841, with the formation of the Mercantile
Agency in New York
• In 1933 the Mercantile Agency joined with R.G.
Dun & Company and became known as Dun and
Bradstreet
• In 1962 D&B created the D-U-N-S number,
currently the preferred method worldwide of
identifying businesses

12. Dun & Bradstreet
• Dun & Bradstreet offers many products and
services to consumers and business
• Some of these include…
–Risk and Finance Solutions
–Operations and Supply Solutions
–Marketing Solutions
–Sales Solutions

13. D-U-N-S Number
• The D-U-N-S number is a nine-digit number
issued by Dun & Bradstreet and assigned to
each business location in the D&B database,
each having a unique, separate, and distinct
operation for the purpose
• Every business must first have a D-U-N-S
number before Dun & Bradstreet will assign a
Paydex business credit score

14. D-U-N-S Number
• The D-U-N-S number is the preferred method worldwide
of identifying businesses
• Unlike national Employment Identification Number (EIN),
a DUNS number may be issued to any business worldwide
• It is used by many foreign governments including the US
and Australia, European Commission, and even the
United Nations
• More than 50 global, industry, and trade associations
recognize, recommend, or require DUNS

15. Dun & Bradstreet
• Dun & Bradstreet has a proprietary DUNSRight
Quality Process providing quality business
information that is the foundation of their global
risk solutions worldwide
• The DUNSRight process was created on the basis
of four fundamental questions:
–is the data accurate
–is the data complete
–is the data timely
–is the data globally consistent

16. Dun & Bradstreet
• To answer these questions, Dun & Bradstreet
runs data through a process called DUNSRIght,
in which data is collected, aggregated, edited,
and verified via thousands of sources daily
• Their ability to turn massive data streams into
high-quality business information is one of
many factors that set them apart from any
other competitor

17. Dun & Bradstreet
• D&B first collects data from a variety of sources
worldwide
• This data is then integrated into their database
through their very own patented entity matching
system
• D&B then uses predictive indicators to rate
businesses’ past performance and to access
future risk

18. D&B Interesting Fact
• Four US Presidents were former employees of
Mercantile Agency, which later became D&B
–Abraham Lincoln
–Ulysses S. Grant
–Grover Cleveland
–William McKinle
• Worked as credit reporters

19. D&B Interesting Fact
• Marilyn Monroe posed with the
Dun & Bradstreet Reference
Book in 1953 from the movie
“How to Marry a Millionaire”
• Woody Harrelson temped for
D&B as a receptionist
• Lewis Tappan, one of D&B’s
founders was the great nephew
of Ben Franklin

20. Dun & Bradstreet Credibility
• D&B has recently moved out of the business
credit building game
• Business credit building and monitoring is
what many people know them for, but no
longer one of their primary services
• Another new company has
come in and bought those
services from D&B

21. Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp.
• Started July 2010
• Has headquarters in Los Angeles, CA
• Currently has over 700 employees
• Is NOT D&B
• Started as a spin-off from D&B, then was
re-purchased in 2015 for 320 million

22. Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp.
• Is privately held unlike D&B
• Funded by Great Hill Partners, a Boston based
private equity firm managing over 2.5 billion
• Separate legal entity from D&B

23. D&B Credibility Services
• D&B Credibility is "the exclusive provider" of
key services previously offered by D&B
• Offers business credit building services
• Offers Credit Builder 1-2k per year
• Offers DUNSFils, which establishes a business’
DUNS number

24. D&B Reports
Dun & Bradstreet further lists in their reports
details on payments the business has made
for each individual account, including their full
payment record, their upper-credit limit, how
much they currently owe on each account,
how much is past due, what the terms of the
account are, and when the account was
reported and last updated

25. D&B Reports
• Extra information D&B provides includes
detailed financial information such as current
assets, liabilities, working capital, net worth,
sales, new profit and loss, and more
• D&B reports also list payment details for each
account. They also add detailed commentary
to the report indicating payment patterns

31. Experian Commercial
• Experian was formerly a division of TRW, an
automotive electronics giant
• TRW was originally founded in 1901 as the
Cleveland Cap Screw Company
• They started producing screws and bolts and
grew to produce many parts for the aviation
and automobile industry

32. Experian
• In the early 1960s, TRW started a consumer
credit information bureau, collecting and selling
consumer data, and eventually became known
as TRW Information Systems
• TRW Information Systems continued compiling
data and were the first to start offering
consumers direct credit report access in 1986

33. Experian
• In 1991, rampant problems started appearing
with TRW reported credit data
• Thousands of people in a town in Vermont
had tax liens inaccurately reporting against
them
• Similar cases started appearing in the entire
northeast, forcing the deletion of countless
tax liens across the states of Vermont, Rhode
Island, New Hampshire, and Maine

34. Experian
• Dozens of law suits were filed against TRW,
claiming sloppy procedures to create credit files,
lack of response to consumer complaints, and re-
reporting previously deleted incorrect data. All
cases were settled out of court
• TRW then created a database known as the
Constituent Relations Information Systems (CRIS)
This system’s sole purpose was to gather personal
data on 8,000 politicians who held opinions on
TRW

35. Experian
• In 1996, TRW was purchased from Bain Capital
and the Tohomas H. Lee Partners for over 1
billion dollars by GUS plc, a private group of
investors
• It was then combined with CCN, the largest credit
reporting company in the United Kingdom
• GUS retained the Experian name for their
combined credit services subsidiary

36. Experian
• This is why Experian shows a founded date of
1996
• They currently employee over 17,000
worldwide across 39 countries
• In 2014 Experian claimed revenue of 4.84
billion dollars

37. 2013 Annual Report
Info- Revenue by Region
• North America 48%
• Latin America 21%
• UK and Ireland 19%
• Asia Pacific 12%

38. Experian
• Experian has also become the second largest reporting
agency in the business credit world
• They provide business credit evaluations for over
99,000,000 small businesses and corporations
worldwide
• These business records are spread over 80 countries
that Experian services
• Experian’s reach is across four main geographic
regions, including North America, Latin America, UK
and Ireland, and EMEA/ Asia Pacific

39. Experian
• Experian’s headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland.
• They have operational headquarters in
Nottingham (UK), Costa Mesa (California), and
São Paulo (Brazil)
• Experian plc is listed on the London Stock
Exchange (EXPN) and in a constituent of the
FTSE 100 Index

40. Experian Locations
• Experian Canada-
Toronto
• Costa Mesa CA
• Mexico
• Costa Rica
• Columbia
• Peru
• Brazil
• Chile
• Argentina
• Norway
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Poland

41. Experian Locations
• Germany
• Netherlands
• London
• Ireland
• France
• Spain
• Monaco
• Greece Italy
• Morocco
• Russia Australia
• Turkey
• Bulgaria

42. Experian Locations
• UAE
• India
• Thailand
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• Honk Kong
• Taiwan
• China
• South Korea
• Japan
• South Africa
• New Zealand

43. Experian
• Experian focuses on providing quality data and
analytics to businesses to help them better assess
risk
• They possess a massive consumer and
commercial database that they manage to help
businesses obtain the best and most up-to-date
information
• They then extract significant extra value with this
data by applying their own proprietary analytics
and software

44. Other Experian Services
• Decision Analytics
–Application processing
–Customer management
–Fraud solutions
–Collections analytics
• Marketing Services
• Consumer Services
–Credit Monitoring
–ID Theft Protection

45. Experian
Experian Commercial reports combine many
types of data including…
–Firmographics Information
–Public Records
–Scoring
–Trade Information

46. A typical Experian business credit report
will include…
• A company’s registration and ownership details
• Trading addresses
• How quickly the business is paying its bills
• A credit risk score
• Court judgments
• History of financial performance

47. A typical Experian business credit report
will include…
• Business Background Information
• Company Financial Information
• Credit Score and Risk Factors
• Banking, Trade, and Collection
History
• Liens, Judgments, and Bankruptcies
• Uniform Commercial Code Filings

54. Equifax
• Equifax was originally founded in 1898, 70 years
before the creation of TransUnion and 57 years
after the formation of D&B
• Two brothers, Cator and Guy Woolford, created
the company. Cator actually got the idea from his
grocery business, where hecollected customers’
names and evidence of credit worthiness
• He then sold that list to other merchants to offset
his own business costs

55. Equifax
• The success of this tactic led Cator and his
attorney brother, Guy, to Atlanta, where they
set up what would become one of the most
powerful industries in existence today
• The Retail Credit Company was born, and local
grocers quickly started using the Woolford
service, which expanded rapidly. By the early
1900s the service had expanded from grocers
to the insurance industry

56. Equifax
• Retail Credit Company continued to grow into
one of the largest credit bureaus, by the 1960s
having nearly 300 branches in operation
• They collected all kinds of consumer data,
even rumors about people’s marital lives and
childhoods. They were also scrutinized for
selling this data to just about anyone who
would buy it

57. Equifax
• Throughout the 60s Equifax continued to provide
credit reporting services, but the majority of their
business came from making reports to insurance
companies when people applied for new
insurance policies, including life, auto, fire, and
medical insurance
• Almost all major insurance
companies were using RCC
to get information on the
health, habits, morals,
finances and vehicle use of
potential insurees

58. Equifax
• In the late 60s, Equifax started to compile
their data onto computers, giving many more
companies access to this data – if they chose
to purchase it
• They began to earn a bad reputation for
selling data to anyone who wanted it, whether
or not the data was accurate

59. Equifax
• Equifax was gathering details about people including
their marital troubles, jobs, school history childhood,
sex life, political activates, and more
• There was no limit to the kind or amount of data they
were collecting
• Some of the information was factual, while large
swathes of the rest were completely false; some
information was literally no more than rumors
• Equifax was even said to reward their employees for
finding the most negative information about
consumers

60. Equifax
• In response, when the US Congress met in 1971 it
enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This new
law was the first to govern the information credit
bureaus and regulate what they were allowed to
collect and sell
• Equifax was no longer allowed to
misrepresent itself when
conducting consumer
investigations and employees
were no longer given bonuses on
the basis of the negative
information they were collecting,
the standard practice in the past

61. Equifax
• Retail Credit Division was charged with
violating this law a few years later, causing
even more government restrictions to be
implemented
• Scarred with a bad reputation for violations of
the new credit laws, the company changed it
name to Equifax in 1975 to improve its image

62. Equifax
• Throughout the 1980s, Equifax,
Experian and TransUnion split up the
remaining smaller credit rating
agencies between them, adding 104
of those to Equifax’s portfolio
• Equifax aggressively grew throughout the US and Canada,
and then began growing their commercial business
division across the UK
• At this time Equifax started competing more aggressively
with rivals Dun & Bradstreet and Experian
• They then continued to grow, taking aligning with CSC
Credit Services and another 65 additional bureaus

63. Equifax
• Equifax has continued to grow with revenue
exceeding 2.3 billion in 2013
• Equifax is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and has
employees in 14 countries
• They are listed as a public company on the
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the
sign EFX

64. Equifax
• Equifax’s source of data today is still some of the
most vital information used by credit grantors to
decide what sort of products or services they offer
to their customers and at what terms
• Equifax’s system for collecting data is NCTUE, an
exchange of non-credit data including consumer
payment history on Telco and other utility account

65. Equifax
• Today Equifax is one of the major credit
reporting agencies used in many countries
• Some of the countries where Equifax is mainly
used include Canada, Chile, India, Mexico,
Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United
States

66. Equifax
Equifax get’s its commercial data to populate
reports from…
–Public Records
–Small Business Financial Exchange
–Trade Vendors

68. Equifax Business Credit Reports
• Company Details
– Name
– Address
– Phone
– Fax
– Equifax ID
• Credit Utilization Details
– Utilized Amount
– Available Credit

69. Equifax Business Credit Reports
• Days Beyond Terms
• Inquiries
• Bureau Messages
- “Legal entity has more
than one site”
• Credit Scores
- Credit Risk Score
- Payment Index
- Business Failure Score

70. Equifax Business Credit Reports
Bureau Summary Data
– Number of accounts
– Credit active since
– Charge-offs and past due
– Most severe status in 24 months
– Highest credit extended
– current credit exposure
– Median balance
– Average open balance
– Recent new accounts and inquiries
– Recent delinquent accounts
– Recent account updates

71. Equifax Business Credit Reports
• Public Records
– BK
– Judgments
• Satisfied
– Liens
• Filed and opened
• Released
• Additional Information
– Alternate company
names
– Owner and guarantor
names
– Business comments
– Reported generated date

72. Learn more about business credit at
www.CreditSuite.com
Ty Crandall
877-600-2487
info@creditsuite.com
Grab Your Free Guide to Building Business Credit
www.CreditSuite.com/ein