Equifax’s Background:
Equifax was founded over 100 years ago in 1898 by two brothers, Cator and Guy Woolford. Cator had already gotten his start in the credit bureau business as a grocer in Tennessee. For the local Retail Grocer’s Association, he supervised a compilation list of customers by determining their creditworthiness. After this stint, Cator decided to make credit reporting his full career.
After his decision, he got with his brother Guy who was a lawyer to work on the venture. Deciding to get started in Atlanta, they rented an office that consisted of a single room and was called Retail Credit Company in 1899. Not long after, the brothers created a book called the Merchant’s Guide, which allowed merchants and grocers to check on the credit information of consumers.
Their next venture was an area called “moral hazard” where they provided similar information to insurance companies. This venture proved to be more lucrative and enabled them to expand their business into Dallas. Afterward, offices were opened in Cincinnati, Kansas, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Over the next several decades, the company entered other ventures which included auto insurance reporting. And improved its storage, filing and updating systems from 3×5 index cards to electronic technology. By the 1970s the company began acquiring competitors and by 1979 the company was able to become a new entity with a new name, Equifax, which means equitable factual information.
In the 1980′s and 1990′s the company continued to expand and focus its efforts on collecting consumer information. It ventured to different countries and eventually made its business a worldwide entity.
Present Day:
Equifax now provides information about consumers to clients in a number of industries, including finance, credit card, banking, telecommunications, and retail. The company also focuses on payment services, software, modeling, analytics, consulting, and more. It operates in 18 countries and boasts billions of dollars revenue.
>> Learn the roles of the credit bearus and how it affects you.