The History and Purpose of Small Business Credit Data Consortiums

Strength in Numbers for Small Business Credit

Small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy – accounting for 99.7% of U.S. employer firms and 64% of new private-sector jobs, according to the SBA. Yet one of their perennial challenges is access to capital. Many small firms have thin or no credit files, making it hard for lenders to judge risk.

This is where credit data consortiums come in. In simple terms, a credit data consortium is a collaborative data-sharing arrangement where lenders and financial institutions pool their credit performance data for mutual benefit. By sharing information on borrowers’ payment histories, members of a consortium gain a far more complete picture of a small business’s creditworthiness than any one lender could see alone. The result is “strength in numbers” – better risk assessment for lenders and improved access to credit for small businesses.

The flip-side of this coin is that the data is exclusive to members of the network. In order to access the pooled insights and shared data, you have to also be willing to share. In this article we’re doing a deep-dive into the history of sharing business credit data and taking a look at several active consortia you can benefit from today. By the end of it all we hope to have made a strong case that sharing data not only benefits the industry as a whole, but can also dramatically improve results for your business as well. Let’s dive in.

A History of Credit Data Sharing: From 19th-Century Ledgers to Modern Bureaus

The concept of sharing credit data among businesses has deep historical roots. In fact, one of the first credit reporting networks formed as early as 1826 in London, when merchants began exchanging information on customers who failed to pay their debts. This mutual trust-building exercise – merchants warning each other about bad debtors – was essentially a proto-consortium.

Similar developments took place in the United States: in 1897, a businessman named Jim Chilton in Dallas persuaded local merchants to pool their credit records, creating a shared bureau of “good” and “bad” credit risks. That effort became part of what is now Experian’s credit bureau.

By the mid-20th century, credit reporting in the consumer world was dominated by many regional bureaus and associations, which later consolidated into today’s big three consumer credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian). The reciprocity principle became a cornerstone of these systems – creditors who furnished (contributed) data could in return access the pooled credit files when evaluating applicants. In other words, the early consumer credit bureaus functioned as data-sharing clubs long before formal regulations codified their practices. This approach greatly expanded the availability of credit. Lenders could make informed decisions based on an applicant’s comprehensive credit history gathered from many sources, rather than just their own experience.

When it came to commercial credit (loans and trade credit extended to businesses), there was also a long history of information sharing – Dun & Bradstreet traces its origins to 1841, when merchants pooled data on business customers. However, that system mainly covered larger firms and trade payment data. Small businesses, especially those seeking bank loans or credit cards, often fell into a gap: their owners’ personal credit might be thin, and business trade references might not tell the full story. Recognizing this gap, the stage was set by the late 20th century for new consortiums focused specifically on small business credit data.

The Rise of Small Business Credit Data Consortiums

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, lenders and credit analysts increasingly saw the value in aggregating small business credit performance data across institutions. The goal was to emulate the consumer credit bureau model – but tailored to the nuances of small business lending. Key motivators included:

• Reducing risk and uncertainty: Small businesses were seen as a “riskier” market, often with limited credit histories. A centralized data exchange could reveal a more complete credit profile (loans, credit lines, credit card accounts, payment behaviors) to better predict default risk.
• Accelerating lending decisions: With data pooled in one place, lenders could make faster credit decisions rather than piecing together information from applicants and disparate sources. A consortium would “make lending to small businesses more efficient” by centrally collecting and analyzing data. (Equifax)
• Leveling the information playing field: No single bank has a full picture of a small business’s obligations if that business borrows from multiple sources. By sharing data, lenders gain insight into borrowers’ total debts and payment performance across the industry, helping prevent overextension and improving underwriting quality.‍
• Promoting financial inclusion: When lenders have more confidence in the data, they are more likely to extend credit to deserving small businesses. Data-sharing can thus spur small business growth while still keeping risk in check.

Several major initiatives emerged from these motivations. Let’s look at the history of several SMB credit data consortiums in the U.S. — the SBFE, Experian’s SBCS, Dun & Bradstreet’s SBRI, and Equifax’s CFN (including PayNet and Ansonia). For each, we will take a look at their history and significance to understand how they’ve shaped the broader business credit ecosystem.

The Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE)

The Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE) is often considered the flagship consortium for small business credit data. Founded in 2001, the SBFE was created by a group of leading small-business lenders who agreed to contribute their loan performance data into a shared pool, so they could collectively benefit from the insights. The SBFE was set up as a member-owned, non-profit association – governed by the lending industry itself.

Its mission from the outset was “to promote and enable the exchange of small business credit information among financial institutions.” In practical terms, the SBFE built a secure data exchange holding granular payment performance records on small business loans, credit cards, credit lines, leases, and other obligations. This included “previously unavailable” data that individual lenders had on their own books but had never before shared publicly. (Equifax)

How the SBFE works: Lender members contribute data on their small business customers’ accounts (e.g. whether a business is paying its loan on time, credit card balances, any delinquencies, etc.). In return, members get access – via the SBFE’s approved analytics vendors – to comprehensive credit reports and scores derived from the entire consortium’s data. Importantly, the SBFE itself doesn’t generate credit reports for commercial use; instead, it licenses the data to certified third-party credit bureaus who create risk scores, reports, and tools for SBFE members. This model ensures that no single lender “owns” the data – it’s a cooperative resource – and it brings in expert bureaus to analyze the information.

A brief timeline:

• 2001: The SBFE is formed by initial member banks. Around this time, the SBFE partnered with Equifax as its first vendor. Equifax was chosen to develop and manage the SBFE database and deliver credit reports and scores to SBFE members. In fact, from 2001 until 2013, Equifax had an exclusive contract to operate the SBFE data exchange (Equifax). This gave Equifax a head start in leveraging the SBFE’s trove of small business data.
• 2006: The SBFE’s membership and database grew rapidly, becoming “formidable” by mid-decade. (SBFE) Within a few years, the SBFE had doubled the number of trade lines in its database and tripled its membership – a testament to lenders’ enthusiasm for the concept.
• 2013-2014: The SBFE’s leadership opened the door to multiple certified vendors instead of a single distributor. By 2014, the SBFE transitioned to a multi-provider model, allowing other commercial credit bureaus to access the data (under strict agreements) and offer products to SBFE members. Over the next few years the SBFE brought Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and LexisNexis Risk Solutions on board alongside Equifax. (SBFE FAQ) By 2018, all four of those companies were fully engaged and delivering SBFE-based analytics to the market. This change encouraged competition and innovation in how SBFE data gets used (different scoring models, etc.), all while keeping the underlying data cooperative.‍
• Today: The SBFE has over two decades of operation under its belt. It is the largest repository of small business credit payment data in the U.S., fed by a who’s-who of small business lenders. According to Experian, the SBFE’s contributors include the top 10 commercial banks and credit card issuers, representing over 98 million small business accounts encompassing term loans, lines of credit, business credit cards, and more. This scale of data is unprecedented – the SBFE’s member-contributed database covers tens of millions of businesses and decades of history. Little wonder that many lenders consider SBFE-based scores a crucial part of their credit risk toolkit.

Why the SBFE matters: The consortium exists “to provide a more accurate and complete picture of a small business’s creditworthiness”, helping lenders make better decisions. (Experian) Because the SBFE aggregates data that no single lender or bureau would have alone, it can reveal credit behaviors (like total debt obligations, multi-lender payment patterns, etc.) that improve risk assessment. A lender checking an SBFE-derived report might discover, for example, that a loan applicant already has business credit cards or equipment leases with other institutions – information that could affect the new lending decision. This broader visibility reduces blind spots in underwriting. For small businesses, the benefit is that good payment history anywhere in the network counts in their favor. If they’ve diligently paid loans to one bank, another SBFE member bank can see that positive history and potentially offer credit on better terms. In effect, SBFE data helps reward responsible borrowers and extend credit to those who have “earned” it through solid repayment performance (even if they are a young business with no traditional credit rating).

Another important aspect is that the SBFE remains industry-governed. It’s run independently with its own staff and a board drawn from member financial institutions. This structure builds trust: members know the exchange is operated for their collective interest, not for profit or the agenda of a single company. Security and confidentiality are paramount – members share detailed loan-level data into the SBFE, but when another member pulls a report, they do so via an authorized vendor and do not directly see which specific lender contributed each tradeline. The data is aggregated in a way that focuses on the borrower’s behavior, not the competitor’s identity, thus alleviating competitive concerns. Over the years, the SBFE and its vendors have developed robust processes (and certification standards) to ensure data quality, anonymity of contributors, and compliance with privacy laws.

The SBFE’s two-decade journey demonstrates the power of a consortium approach. It took the small business lending community from a fragmented, siloed data environment to a “highly trusted data exchange” with 20+ years of history. (SBFE) The result: lenders large and small can tap into the richest pool of SMB credit data available, and thousands of entrepreneurs have obtained credit based on a fairer assessment of their business’s track record. The SBFE’s unofficial motto is “Strength in Numbers,” and its success has inspired others to form similar data-sharing programs.

Experian’s Small Business Credit Share (SBCS)

Around the same time the SBFE was getting started, credit bureau Experian launched its own consortium-style program known as Small Business Credit Share (SBCS). Debuted in the mid-2000s, the SBCS program was built on a simple but powerful idea: “When you share credit data, everyone benefits.” (Experian)

In Experian’s words, Small Business Credit Share is a credit data sharing “club.” It is a consortium of banks, credit card issuers, leasing companies, utilities, telecom providers and others that agree to contribute data on their small-business customers in exchange for exclusive access to the pooled data. Members supply both financial data (loans, lines, cards, leases) and non-financial data (e.g. telecom and utility payment records) on businesses. In return, they get to see the rich combined data from all members – which far exceeds what any one lender would normally receive on a credit report.

Experian’s Small Business Credit Share (SBCS) program emphasizes pooling data among many lenders (“a credit data sharing club”) to give members exclusive insight and better risk models. In fact, Experian reports that SBCS members’ custom risk scores can predict small business credit risk 40% more effectively than standard scores. (Experian)

The membership roster of SBCS quickly grew to include many major players. By 2016, six of the nation’s top ten financial institutions were members, alongside several large telecom and utility companies. This cross-industry participation is a unique strength of Experian’s approach – it recognizes that not only banks hold valuable data on small businesses; utility payments, office lease payments, and other non-traditional credit experiences can also indicate a business’s reliability. Experian thus created a more expansive consortium, bringing in data beyond the usual bank loans and credit cards. Every member is required to supply at least 10 data elements per account (such as credit limits, balances, payment history, etc.) to ensure depth of information. In other words, to get the most out of SBCS, you have to put data in – a classic “give to get” model that encourages robust contributions. (As Experian bluntly puts it: the more you share, the clearer the picture and the smarter your decisions.)

How SBCS data is used: Experian leverages the consortium database to produce enhanced business credit reports and scores available only to SBCS members. These reports incorporate far more detail than a standard commercial credit bureau file. For example, instead of just showing a score and any delinquencies, an SBCS report might include granular info like current and past account balances, highest credit utilized, months since account opening, payment trends, and even benchmarking against peer businesses.

Experian has developed risk models (e.g. an “acquisition score” for new applicants, and portfolio risk scores) that are significantly more predictive thanks to the richness of SBCS data. When Experian rolled out its Small Business Credit Share Financial Acquisition score in 2010, it was specifically designed to predict serious delinquency on new small-business accounts, and it drew on the consortium’s pooled data for its analytics. In practice, this means a lender using an SBCS score can more accurately distinguish which applicants are likely to default versus pay, improving approval decisions and pricing.

Benefits to members and borrowers: Much like the SBFE, the SBCS program creates a win-win scenario:

• Lenders benefit by seeing the full credit exposure of an applicant across multiple lenders.
• Lenders can also use SBCS data to monitor their portfolios, not just at origination.
• Borrowers benefit because good behavior is shared and rewarded, which can lead to better access to credit and terms.
• There’s also a public policy compliance angle – participating in SBCS satisfies SBA credit reporting requirements while offering valuable insights in return.

Overall, Experian’s Small Business Credit Share has been “overwhelmingly positively received” by the industry. (Experian) The success of SBCS underscores a key point: data sharing isn’t a zero-sum game – multiple exchanges can coexist, each adding value. As long as a consortium adheres to privacy, security, and fairness, lenders are keen to participate because the insights gained outweigh the competitive worries of sharing data.

Dun & Bradstreet’s Small Business Risk Insight (SBRI)

Global commercial data giant Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) has long been known for its business credit reports and the famous DUNS number system. Historically, D&B’s bread and butter was collecting trade payment data (how quickly companies pay their suppliers) and financial statement information on businesses. But as bank lenders began focusing on small businesses in the 2000s, D&B also recognized the need to incorporate financial trade data (loans, credit lines, cards) into its files. To that end, D&B launched Small Business Risk Insight (SBRI) – a proprietary consortium program to gather small business lending performance data directly from participating financial institutions.

In essence, SBRI is D&B’s own version of a small business credit data exchange. It is described as “Dun & Bradstreet’s proprietary repository of financial services payment performance information on loans, lines [of credit], credit cards, and leases.” (NACM) Like the SBFE and SBCS, SBRI “consolidates data from contributed financial institutions on small business lending performance” across banking, credit card, and leasing industries. D&B then combines the SBRI-contributed data with its extensive database of trade credit records and business demographics. The result is a rich, “decision-ready” insight on small businesses that can be used for everything from targeting and underwriting new credit to managing existing accounts.

D&B’s SBRI initiative actually dates back to the early 2000s. (A trademark filing indicates D&B was already planning SBRI as far back as 2002, though it gained full momentum later in the decade). By the 2010s, D&B had rolled out SBRI-based scores and data panels in its products. For example, D&B’s credit reports began featuring an SBRI Payment Summary section that shows how a company is performing on its loans/leases with consortium members, alongside the traditional trade payment summary. D&B also developed SBRI Origination Scores – specialized scores predicting the likelihood of a small business becoming delinquent on a new loan, lease, or credit card account. These models were built from the pooled SBRI data (and are only available to lenders who contribute to Dun & Bradstreet’s data programs). That last point highlights the reciprocity: D&B requires data contribution to unlock the SBRI scores, ensuring it’s a true consortium approach where all contributors benefit.

SBRI vs. SBFE: An interesting aspect is that D&B became a certified vendor of SBFE data in 2015, once the SBFE opened to multiple bureaus. So D&B can now offer SBFE-derived reports to SBFE members and run its own SBRI exchange in parallel. How do these differ? Essentially:

• SBFE data (when delivered via D&B) reflects the broad industry consortium managed by the SBFE. D&B uses SBFE Data™ in some of its products, combining it with D&B analytics.‍
• SBRI data is D&B’s own consortium, separate from the SBFE. It may include some of the same lenders or accounts, but it is proprietary to D&B. SBRI likely gave D&B a way to capture data from lenders who either were not SBFE members or who wanted an additional outlet to contribute data for D&B-specific insights.

From a lender’s perspective, participating in SBRI could offer extra benefits, like more customized D&B analytics or blending with consumer data. In fact, D&B has promoted blended commercial+consumer scores (since small businesses often rely on owners’ personal credit too) and having SBRI financial data plus consumer bureau data plus D&B trade data all under one roof can yield highly predictive models. The D&B Blended Score, for example, uses SBRI data on the business and consumer credit data on the business owner to predict severe delinquency, giving very wide coverage (even businesses with no prior loans can be scored if the owner has credit history).

The purpose of SBRI aligns with the other consortia: to provide improved transparency and help lenders make profitable small business lending decisions with greater confidence. By delivering consolidated multi-lender information, SBRI helps reveal if a small business is taking on debt elsewhere or exhibiting stress. For example, a D&B SBRI report might list the specific loan and lease accounts a company has (contributed by members), total exposure, number of charge-offs, etc., which go well beyond what a basic D&B report contained historically. Members also get the benefit of D&B’s data quality processes (the “DUNSRight” system) to match and clean the data, ensuring that the John Doe Plumbing, Inc. a bank reported is correctly merged with the same entity’s trade lines and public records in D&B’s database.

In short, SBRI represents D&B’s effort to stay competitive in the age of data consortia. Rather than only relying on data gathered from public filings and voluntary trades, D&B actively solicited lenders to share their private loan performance data. This not only enhanced D&B’s product offerings but also created another avenue for lenders to reciprocally share data for mutual gain.

The Equifax Commercial Financial Network (CFN)

The Equifax Commercial Financial Network (CFN) is a shared data consortium focused on commercial finance. It serves as a large-scale exchange of small business credit information – spanning loans, leases, trade credit, and more – which Equifax manages on behalf of participating lenders.

By pooling payment performance data from thousands of contributors, CFN gives lenders access to broader and deeper insights than any one institution could collect on its own. This empowers participating lenders to make better-informed credit decisions and cultivate stronger relationships with small business borrowers.

Equifax launched CFN in the mid-2010s to improve transparency and expand access to capital for American small businesses through collaborative data sharing. Today, it supports this mission by enabling lenders to see a business’s complete credit profile across multiple institutions—loans, leases, and trade lines alike.

How the Network Works: CFN operates on a “give-to-get” model. Banks, credit unions, fintechs, and leasing companies contribute business credit data and, in return, gain reciprocal access to the entire network’s insights. Each contributor retains ownership of the data they provide and helps shape the network’s rules and policies through governance bodies like an advisory board.

Participation is voluntary and fee-free—there are no annual dues or contractual commitments. This open, inclusive approach has attracted broad engagement. By 2016, over 1,200 institutions were contributing data, including many of the country’s largest commercial lenders. (TickerTrends)

Timeline and Growth:

• In 2019, Equifax acquired PayNet, Inc., a major provider of small business credit ratings. PayNet contributed a proprietary database of over 24 million SMB contracts worth more than $1.6 trillion. (Equifax)
• In 2020, it acquired Ansonia Credit Data, bringing $1.3 trillion in trade payment data across 7 million businesses, enhancing CFN’s visibility into supplier and accounts receivable risk. (Equifax)

Together, these acquisitions expanded CFN’s footprint across traditional and alternative commercial credit data—making it one of the most comprehensive small business data exchanges in the U.S.

Why CFN Matters & How You Can Use It: CFN gives lenders a 360° view of borrower risk, built from shared data across the network. This data fuels Equifax’s suite of tools—credit reports, Commercial Insight scores, portfolio alerts, and custom analytics. These solutions integrate consortium trade lines with bureau data (like firmographics, public records, and personal guarantor info when appropriate) to build robust business risk profiles.

Lenders use CFN to streamline underwriting, spot early warning signs, and benchmark against market trends. For example, a lender might set portfolio monitoring alerts to trigger proactive outreach when a borrower’s risk profile shifts, or use benchmarking dashboards to compare their portfolio’s delinquency rates against peer averages.

Because participation is reciprocal and fee-free, contributors gain access to all of this without licensing costs—and may even qualify for volume-based discounts on Equifax solutions.

How Small Businesses Benefit: CFN doesn’t just help lenders—it helps borrowers too. When good repayment behavior is shared through CFN, it builds trust across the financial ecosystem. A small business with strong performance at one lender can use that record to qualify elsewhere, unlocking better credit terms and wider access to capital. This is particularly powerful for "thin file" or newer businesses that might not yet have built a multi-year credit history.

Equifax designed CFN to “expand access to capital and services for American small businesses, and simultaneously grow those entities that provide it.” (Equifax) In practice, that mission means giving Main Street businesses better visibility—and more opportunity—across the credit landscape.

A Network Built for Smarter Lending: With contributions from thousands of institutions, CFN aggregates an unparalleled depth of data. This includes not just loans and leases, but also trade credit, utility and telecom performance, and even data from newer sources like cash flow and alternative finance. Lenders can use this data to:

• Fill in blind spots in credit history
• Reduce friction in the underwriting process
• Detect fraud and emerging risk trends
• Compare borrower performance across industries or geographies

The result is a more complete and predictive picture of small business creditworthiness. And the more contributors participate, the more valuable the network becomes.

One other notable player: LexisNexis

LexisNexis, known for its vast repository of public records and alternative data, became a certified SBFE vendor in the mid-2010s. (LexisNexis) As a certified vendor, LexisNexis integrates the SBFE’s small business credit performance data with its own data assets—including information on liens, judgments, corporate registrations, and ownership structures. This combination enables LexisNexis to offer lenders a more comprehensive picture of small business creditworthiness, particularly for businesses with limited traditional credit histories.

While LexisNexis is not a credit bureau in the traditional sense, its role in the SBFE ecosystem highlights the broader utility of consortium-sourced data. Beyond credit scoring, LexisNexis uses this data to power solutions focused on identity verification, fraud detection, and application risk. By surfacing inconsistencies, confirming business legitimacy, and providing deeper context on borrower behavior, LexisNexis helps lenders make more informed, risk-adjusted decisions—especially in segments where traditional data may be sparse.

The Purpose and Impact of Credit Consortiums: A Summary

Through all these developments, one trend is clear: sharing data has become a competitive necessity in small business lending. Lenders who participate in consortiums gain superior insight, while those who don’t risk being “blind” to important obligations a borrower has elsewhere. Consortium data has proven so valuable that today it’s woven into the fabric of most commercial credit evaluations. In fact, many small business lenders have policies requiring a check of the SBFE or similar data as part of underwriting. It’s a far cry from decades ago when a banker relied mostly on the owner’s personal credit report and maybe a couple of trade references. The ecosystem has evolved to cooperative competition – lenders still compete for customers, but they cooperate in sharing the data that can make lending safer for everyone.

Looking back at the history and purpose of these consortiums, a few key themes emerge:

• Better Information = Better Decisions: All consortiums were founded on the premise that pooling data leads to more accurate risk assessments. The data exchanges have empirically improved the predictive power of credit scores. Lenders can differentiate good vs. bad risks more effectively, which means more approvals of creditworthy businesses and fewer bad loans to risky ones. This improved decisioning benefits the economy by channeling capital where it can be repaid and do the most good.
  
  
• Enabling Credit Access and Inclusion: By filling information gaps, consortium data allows lenders to say “yes” to borrowers they might otherwise decline due to limited credit history. A new small business might not have much record on file, but if the consortium shows they have a $50k lease they’ve been paying like clockwork for a year, that could tip the scales in favor of approval. As Experian noted, open data sharing helps small businesses get the credit they deserve. This aligns with broader goals of financial inclusion – ensuring worthy small enterprises aren’t shut out of funding simply because of a lack of data.
  
  
• Mutual Benefit through Reciprocity: Credit data consortiums operate on a “give-and-get” principle. Members who contribute data get back richly enhanced data. This reciprocity encourages broad participation and fair use. It also creates a positive network effect: the more members join and contribute, the more valuable the pool becomes for all. The SBFE’s rapid growth in membership and data volume is an example of this virtuous cycle. Today’s consortium databases have reached critical mass where even the largest banks alone could not replicate their scope.
  
  
• Industry Self-Regulation and Collaboration: It’s notable that the SBFE was initiated by lenders themselves as a non-profit collective, and SBCS and SBRI were voluntarily adopted by many institutions. This proactive, collaborative approach has arguably staved off some need for regulatory intervention (though of course, consumer privacy laws and Fair Credit Reporting Act standards still apply to commercial credit data in certain ways). The success of consortiums shows that competitors can collaborate on infrastructure when it serves a common interest. In the end, every lender benefits from a more predictive credit system and a healthier pool of borrowers in the market.
  
  
• Challenges overcome: Early on, some institutions may have been hesitant to share their “secret” customer data. What if a competitor poaches my client, or uses the data against me? Consortiums addressed this by implementing data-use rules (e.g., you can only use the data for risk assessment, not for marketing leads) and by anonymizing the source of data in reports. Over time, the value proven by consortium data eased these fears. The fact that many major small business lenders are now in the SBFE or SBCS indicates the industry reached a consensus that the benefits far outweigh any competitive risk. Additionally, strict security and governance have prevented breaches or misuse, building trust in the system.
  
  

In summary, credit data consortiums for small business have evolved from experimental ideas to indispensable tools in roughly two decades. They borrow from the older tradition of consumer credit bureaus but adapt to the unique context of business lending. The tone around them is rightly positive – these initiatives have shown that when lenders share data responsibly, everybody wins: lenders make better loans, borrowers get more credit, and the overall credit market becomes more efficient and inclusive.

If you would like to take advantage of consortium data for your underwriting, don’t hesitate to reach out! We make reporting credit data to the bureaus (and consortiums) effortless. We’re big believers in the idea that data sharing is a rising tide that raises all ships, and we’d love to have you on board.

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P.S. A Note on Credit Data Consortiums Globally:
The consortium approach is not unique to the United States. Around the world, many countries have developed similar credit information sharing systems that cover both business and consumer credit:

• In Germany, for example, the main credit bureau SCHUFA was founded in 1927 specifically to let companies share consumers’ payment experiences with each other. From its inception, SCHUFA operated on the principle of reciprocity, with banks and creditors pooling data on both good and bad payers. Today SCHUFA (owned by a consortium of banks) manages comprehensive positive and negative credit data much like a giant consortium, fueling consumer and SME credit decisions nationwide.
  
  
• In Brazil, the largest credit bureau Serasa actually began as a consortium of Brazilian banks in 1968. Banks joined forces to create a centralized credit file system, which later grew and was eventually acquired by Experian. This mirrors the collaborative roots we discussed, showing up in an emerging market context.
  
  
• Many other countries have credit registries or bureaus co-owned by financial institutions – for instance, in Italy, the CRIF credit bureau was established in 1990 by a group of regional banks to share credit information. In some cases, central banks run public credit registries where all lenders must report loan performance (a mandatory form of consortium). In others, private bureaus operate under a data reciprocity code, meaning lenders get full access only if they contribute their own data (the UK’s credit reference agencies follow this model, as do those in Canada, Japanorizonturi.ucdc.ro, and more).

The bottom line is that credit data sharing has proven its worth globally. Whether through formal consortiums or regulated credit bureaus, the idea of lenders uniting to reduce information asymmetry is a common thread from the 19th century to today, from New York to New Delhi. It’s fascinating to see that while financial systems differ, the solution to the question “how do we lend safely to those we don’t know much about?” often boils down to “work together and share what we know” – a timeless insight in credit history.