2c. Reporting There are three major companies that collect business information and publish it. These are Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Business Equifax. D&B is by far the largest, but the other two are catching up quickly. Most lending institutions incorporate the information and use the commercial scoring model that they retrieve from D&B’s database. There are a few other business credit reporting companies, but they’re not big players and a business owner won’t need to worry too much about them. These include PayNet, FDInsight, BusinessCreditUSA, and ClientChecker. Dun & Bradstreet is the most common 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. Equifax is called the “Small Business Financial Exchange” and is the most important for cash lenders such as banks. To concentrate on one and not the others is to have lopsided credibility. A business needs to build business credit with all three of these major credit reporting agencies to achieve genuine credibility. Dun and 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 publicly traded company with a headquarters in Short Hills New Jersey, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange. D&B currently holds the largest supply worldwide of business information, with over 200 million business records on file.