In 2012 D&B reported that 129.4 million of these records referred to active companies that were available for risk, supply, sales and marketing decisions. Another 76.7 million were inactive companies, providing historical information for file matching and data cleansing. Dun & Bradstreet has a massive presence worldwide. Of the over 2 million records they had on file in 2012, they reported 54,409,439 were from Europe while only 33,282,653 were from North America. Another 12,097,055 records were from Latin America, while only 27,451,196 records were from Asia Pacific. The lowest volume of records on file was in Africa, with only 1,184,582 records on file, and the Middle East, with only 1,008,477 records on file. Altogether, Dun & Bradstreet reported holding 206,148,055 records in January 2012. They also reported having over 1 billion in payment and bank experiences. And they reported over 159 million public records on file. 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 DUNS number, currently the preferred method worldwide of identifying businesses. Dun & Bradstreet offers many products and services to consumers and businesses. Some of these include risk management products such as the Business Information Report, Comprehensive Report and the DNBi platform. These provide current and historical business information, primarily used by lenders and financial institutions to assist in making credit decisions. D&B also offers sales and marketing products such as the DUNS Market Identifier Database, Optimizer, and D&B Professional Contacts, all of which provide sales and marketing professionals with business data for both prospecting and CRM activity. Just as Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are leaders in the consumer credit reporting arenas, Dun and Bradstreet is the leader in business credit data.