Equifax Inc. is the largest credit bureau in the United States. This company provides consumer information for businesses and consumers. The credit score that it gives is the basis of whether the company would extend its credit to any prospective lenders. Although majority of its revenue (73%) comes from the United States they still want to expand their services worldwide. The demand for Equifax services are very high because of the housing boom and low interest rates that necessitates the need for credit score and background checking.
Equifax offers payment services, analytics, software, modeling, consulting and direct-to-consumer services.
The company expedites more than ten million electronic transactions a day for 300,000 customers worldwide. Although Equifax is based in Atlanta Georgia, it operates in 18 countries and sales in more than 45 countries. Equifax offers consumer and commercial credit information in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, El Salvador, Peru, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Equifax holds the topnotch position when it comes to check guarantee and verification in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.
Late 19th Century Humble Beginnings
Brothers Cator and Guy Woolford founded Equifax in 1898. It was Cator Woolford who started his first credit bureau business as a credit grocer in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He started compiling a list of customers with good credit standing for the local Retail Grocer’s Association. Woolford sold copies of his book to the other merchants to cover the cost of his expenses. His efforts were successfully rewarded thus begun his credit reporting career. With the help of his brother Guy, a lawyer who is six years younger than him, Cator settled in Atlanta as the new site of his venture. On March 22, 1899 the company started their business. He named their company “Retail Credit Company”. This is located on the fifth floor of the Gould Building at 10 Denatur Street. Because of his previous business success in Tennessee, Cator seek out an alliance with the city’s grocers. The Woolfords copied credit information on their customers in individual slips of paper, and compiled this intoi a book. The work has grown so fast that within a few months the brothers hired two additional men to assist them. In June of that same year the the book were run out in a mimeograph machine and hard bound with the title” Merchant’s Guide”. Merchants paid $25 a year to use the book and for the subsequent credit reports the grocers paid less. Although their clients were growing the company posted a loss of $2,242 during their first year.
During their second year the customers increase in huge numbers together with the branching out of the company in fast growing commercial centers in Georgia. By the end of the second year the staff has expanded to eight and the sales volume was growing steady.
Insurance Related Business Expansion
In June 1901 Retail Credit branched out by providing information of potential policy holders to Equitable Life Assurance Society. Insurance companies paid for this valuable information. In March 1902, because of the growing insurance business Guy opened another business in Dallas, Texas shortly followed by another branch in Cincinnati. In April 1903, they have close down their office in Augusta after noticing that there is no financial growth in this area. Within the same year the company split into two main clients: handling retail and insurance report.
In 1908 the company provided reliable reports” National Inspection Service which are useful for insurance purposes. Since by the year end they are growing rapidly their enterprise decided to incorporate hence they now become the Retail Credit Company Inc.
In 1920, they suffered from serious competition when a group of insurance companies started forming the American Service Bureau which provides investigative reports that are like those that Retail Credit was providing. This resulted to a serious drop in their credit and insurance reporting in 1921.
In 1923 they form a new corporation, Credit Service Exchange but later sold this venture to a businessman by the name of L.S. Gilbert. In the 1930s they started using full time company trained investigators. World War II has seriously impacted the business since most of these men were drafted to serve in the army so they finally allowed women to work as inspectors or wives to take over their husband’s job. Because of the war the report volume had sunk to six million.
Remarkable Postwar Growth
Because of the healthy growth in the U.S. economy during the post war Retail Credit has bounced back financially. In the mid 1960s they had started converted their manual files into electronic data systems. This proves to be their greatest asset against their competitors.
In April 1971, Congress has passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Under this law consumers were given the right to access their credit files to correct discrepancies. They also restricted the kinds of information that credit bureau like Retail Credit offers. In 1974, Retail Credit was charged with violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Federal Trade Commission Act. A significant order given by the U.S. government was in giving the Retail Credit an instruction to stop giving negative ratings to their consumers and to stop investigators from disguising themselves when they conduct their inquiries.
Company Metamorphosis from 1979 and Beyond
Retail Credit has changed its name into Equifax derived from “equitable factual information”. It also signaled the change in its activities they branched out in marketing functions. In the late 1970s Equifax expanded their company’s operation by purchasing small local credit reporting agencies to expand their computerized filing. In 1980s the credit bureau industry took a trend in data consolidation. From 1983 to 1988 their revenue grew into $743 million because of their double earnings. In May 1989, they formed an alliance with CSC Credit Services that made a total of 300 bureaus for Equifax. During that time the company was formed into four divisions: insurance information services, ITS traditional strength, credit services and Canadian operations. Equifax has entered the European market in the early 90s.
TrueCredit is a service provider connected to TransUnion but it monitors the credit solution for the three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. An advantage of using TrueCredit’s services is when you request for a copy of your credit report this does not have any negative effect on your credit score. Another advantage is that you can request for an updated copy of your Equifax and Experian credit reports every 30 days as oppose to the usual free credit reports. You can also update your TransUnion credit report and credit score once a day. TrueCredit is valuable to people who need a little work on their credit scores.
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