Credit reporting for the loans the nationwide bureaus were not built for
Small-dollar installment. Single-pay. Auto title. Lease-to-own. Point-of-sale. Send us the export your loan system already produces — we map it, validate it against the CDIA CRRG, fix what’s wrong, and deliver bureau-ready Metro 2 files every cycle.
Live today to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis. Alternative-data bureau coverage is in progress — see exactly where each one stands.
Built for
The loan types this is built for
If you originate any of these, the standard playbook was written for somebody else’s book.
Small-dollar installment
Short-term consumer installment loans — multi-payment, closed-end, typically under $5,000 and under 24 months. The single largest category in the alternative-data files.
Single-pay / short-term
Single-payment and deferred-deposit advances, including tribal and state-licensed lending. Borrowers whose repayment history currently goes almost nowhere.
Line of credit
Open-end consumer credit lines and revolving small-dollar products, reported with credit limit, high balance, and current utilization.
Auto title
Title-secured consumer lending, where collateral position and repayment behavior both matter to the next underwriter in line.
Lease-to-own / rent-to-own
LTO and RTO agreements on furniture, electronics, appliances, and tires — a category the nationwide bureaus have historically underserved.
Point-of-sale & BNPL
Split-pay and point-of-sale installment products, including the short-tenor plans that do not fit cleanly into standard nationwide furnishing.
Online marketplace lending
Direct-to-consumer and marketplace-originated personal loans serving near-prime and non-prime borrowers.
Retail & specialty finance
In-house consumer financing from retailers, service providers, and specialty finance companies operating without a nationwide subscriber code.
What makes reporting hard here
Your loan system exports a CSV. The bureaus require Metro 2.
Loan-management platforms export spreadsheets and reports, not fixed-width Metro 2 files with valid Base, J1/J2, and trailer segments. Bridging that gap by hand is where most first files die — and where most in-house attempts stall for months.
Short-tenor loans churn faster than the format expects
A book of 90-day loans turns over four times a year. Every cycle brings new opens, paid-offs, and status transitions, and each one is a chance to get Date of First Delinquency, Account Status, or the closed-account sequence wrong. Volume of change, not volume of accounts, is what breaks these files.
Your products do not map cleanly to standard account types
Single-pay advances, lease-to-own agreements, and split-pay plans have no obvious Metro 2 account type, term, or payment-rating treatment. Guessing produces files that pass structural validation and still misrepresent the tradeline.
Thin-file borrowers make your accuracy the whole file
When a consumer has two tradelines instead of twenty, an error on yours is not diluted — it is most of what a lender sees. The accuracy bar for non-prime furnishing is genuinely higher than it is for prime, and the dispute volume reflects that.
Furnishing means inheriting dispute obligations
The moment you report, FCRA §1681s-2 reinvestigation duties attach. ACDVs arrive through e-OSCAR and must be answered within 30 days, with documentation you can produce at exam time. Most lenders in this segment have no structured way to track that.
A rejected file costs you a full cycle
Bureaus reject on invalid status codes, bad date formatting, malformed headers, or a broken trailer. One rejection can push your data a month downstream — and in a book of short-term loans, a month is a meaningful share of the loan's life.
What you get
Everything below ships today. Not a roadmap.
Import from the export you already have
Send the CSV your loan-management system already produces. We auto-detect the column layout and build a reusable field-mapping template — there is no blank spreadsheet to fill in first, and no integration project to schedule.
240+ rule CRRG validation
Every record runs against the CDIA Credit Reporting Resource Guide — Base Segment, J1/J2, and K-segment logic, status-to-payment-history consistency, DOFD presence, ECOA codes. Errors come back in plain language with the fix, not as a reject code.
Bureau-ready file generation
We produce the fixed-width Metro 2 file and verify it passes validation before it leaves the system. You can inspect it, export the validation report, and keep both for your records.
Automated SFTP delivery and scheduling
Recurring generation and submission on a cadence you control per bureau, managed from the dashboard. Set the cycle once; the monthly file stops being something you have to remember.
Response parsing and reconciliation
Bureau response files are parsed automatically, rejections are flagged, and the corrections you need to make are surfaced as actionable items — instead of sitting unread in an SFTP folder.
Dispute management built in
End-to-end FCRA dispute tracking with automated deadline monitoring, compliance documentation, and resolution workflows. Reinvestigations live in the same system as the data they concern.
Audit trail for exam day
Field-level change tracking with before/after diffs, automatic SSN redaction, and exportable history. When a regulator or auditor asks what you reported and when, the answer is a query rather than an archaeology project.
API, sandbox, and webhooks
Test-mode API keys and environment-tagged records let you validate safely before going live. Real-time webhooks fire on file generation, transmission outcomes, and dispute lifecycle events so your systems stay in sync.
How your first file comes together
A concierge first-file motion, not a do-it-yourself upload.
- 1
Send us a sample export
The raw file from your loan-management or servicing platform. No template, no cleanup pass, no schema document required — we work from what you already have.
- 2
We map your fields to Metro 2
We build the mapping, including the judgment calls your products actually require: account type, terms, and payment-rating treatment for single-pay, lease-to-own, and split-pay plans. The mapping is saved and reused every cycle.
- 3
We validate and fix, together
The full 240-plus rule engine runs and we walk the errors with you — every one, not just the fatal ones. This is where a first file gets rescued instead of rejected.
- 4
We generate and deliver
A verified, bureau-ready file goes out by automated SFTP to the bureaus you choose, on your monthly cycle. Responses come back parsed and reconciled.
- 5
Disputes and corrections stay in one place
Reinvestigation requests are tracked, answered, and documented in the same workflow as the data. Nothing lives in a separate inbox you have to remember to check.
Where your data goes
Start with the nationwide file — that is the tradeline your borrower sees and the one that helps them qualify elsewhere. That’s live today.
Beyond it sits a second tier of FCRA-regulated bureaus built specifically for non-prime lending, and each of the Big 3 owns at least one of them. The catch that surprises most lenders: these are separate databases with separate contributor agreements. Furnishing to Equifax does not put your data into DataX or Teletrack, and a tradeline in one of those files does not appear on the standard consumer report.
The nationwide consumer file — the tradeline that appears on a standard credit report and is scored by FICO and VantageScore. Live today by automated SFTP.
The fourth nationwide bureau. Note that Innovis applies a portfolio-size threshold that many smaller books will not clear.
Experian's subprime and thin-file alternative-data bureau. Heavily used for small-dollar installment and single-pay underwriting.
Equifax's specialty-finance bureau covering non-prime consumer lending, with a focus on short-term and installment products.
One of the longest-running short-term and small-dollar lending databases, now under Equifax alongside DataX.
TransUnion's alternative credit data bureau for non-prime consumers, covering installment, single-pay, title, and lease-to-own performance.
The Risk Verify Database — an independent contributory file. Notably it ingests a delimited contribution format rather than standard fixed-width Metro 2.
What ships today, and what does not
Nationwide furnishing to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis is live — you can start this cycle. The alternative-data bureaus above are not live delivery targets yet: we have contributor onboarding open with several of them and are working through agreements, file specifications, and pricing. We are not going to sell you coverage we cannot deliver. If alternative-data reporting is what you need, register below — interest is what moves it from a roadmap item to a build, and early registrants go first.
Why furnishing is worth the effort
Give good payers somewhere to build
Borrowers who pay a small-dollar loan on time for twelve months deserve a record of it. Reporting turns your best customers' behavior into an asset they carry forward — and a concrete reason to come back to you instead of a competitor.
Reporting changes repayment behavior
Telling a borrower their payments are reported is one of the few levers that moves performance without changing price or underwriting. It is a collections tool you deploy at origination rather than after delinquency.
Reach the underwriters who actually pull your borrower
A non-prime applicant's nationwide file is often thin or empty, which is why non-prime lenders lean on the alternative-data bureaus. Broad coverage puts your performance data in front of the decisions it should influence.
Contribution is what earns you access
The alternative-data files run on reciprocity: contributors are the consumers of the data. If you want visibility into other lenders' recent activity on your applicants, contributing your own performance data is the entry ticket.
One pipeline, every destination
One export, one mapping, one monthly cycle, one reconciliation report — regardless of how many bureaus you report to. Adding a destination should never mean adding a vendor or a process.
Compliance posture you can show someone
Validation history, field-level audit trail, and documented dispute responses are what turn "we report to the bureaus" into something that survives an examination.
Compliance you can stand behind
FCRA §1681s-2 furnisher duties
Accuracy and reinvestigation obligations attach the moment you furnish. Dispute tracking, deadline monitoring, and response documentation are part of the platform, not an add-on you assemble later.
CDIA CRRG conformance
The Metro 2 format and its field-level rules are defined by the CDIA in the Credit Reporting Resource Guide. Our 240-plus rule engine encodes those rules so files conform to the standard the bureaus actually enforce.
Obsolescence and re-aging protection
Date of First Delinquency handling and the seven-year obsolescence boundary are enforced in validation. Records past the reporting window are omitted rather than silently re-aged.
Auditable history with SSN redaction
Every field change is tracked with before/after values and automatic SSN redaction, exportable for CFPB or state examinations without exposing consumer identifiers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start reporting today, or is this a waitlist?
You can start today. Furnishing to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis is live — import, mapping, validation, file generation, SFTP delivery, dispute management, and audit trail all ship now. What is not live yet is the alternative-data bureaus (Clarity, DataX, Teletrack, FactorTrust, MicroBilt); those are in various stages of contributor onboarding and are clearly labelled on this page. If nationwide reporting is what you need, there is nothing to wait for.
Isn't reporting to Equifax the same as reporting to DataX or Teletrack?
No, and this trips up a lot of lenders. Each of the Big 3 owns at least one alternative-data bureau — Experian owns Clarity, Equifax owns DataX and Teletrack, TransUnion owns FactorTrust — but they are separate databases with separate contributor agreements. Furnishing to the parent does not populate the subsidiary's file. A tradeline in an alternative-data file also does not appear on the standard consumer report and is not scored by classic FICO or VantageScore models; it reaches the non-prime underwriters who query those files directly. The two are complements, not substitutes.
Which bureaus should I actually report to?
Start with the nationwide file — that is the tradeline your borrower sees and the one that helps them qualify elsewhere. Beyond that, it depends on your loan mix and who underwrites against your borrowers, and the answer is usually more than one. Tell us what you originate and we will come back with a specific recommendation rather than asking you to pick from a list of names you have no reason to know.
Do my products even fit the Metro 2 format?
Mostly yes, with judgment calls that are worth getting right the first time. Single-pay advances, lease-to-own agreements, and split-pay plans have no single obvious account type, term, or payment-rating treatment, and a wrong choice produces a file that validates cleanly while misrepresenting the tradeline. Those decisions are part of the mapping work we do with you, not something we hand you a spec sheet for.
How small is too small?
For the nationwide bureaus, each one approves furnishers independently and may weigh portfolio size — Innovis in particular applies a threshold most small books will not clear. Very small portfolios sometimes cannot get approved as a direct furnisher anywhere, in which case reporting through an aggregator is the realistic path. Tell us your volume and we will give you a straight answer about what you can and cannot get approved for, rather than selling you a plan first.
What does the alternative-data coverage cost?
We do not have contribution terms from those bureaus yet, so we are not going to invent a number. Register your interest below and you will get real pricing the moment we have it, along with any minimum-volume requirements, before you are asked to decide anything. Pricing for nationwide furnishing is on our pricing page today.
When will the alternative-data bureaus be live?
Realistically, not this quarter. Bureau onboarding paperwork runs 4 to 12 weeks per destination, and the format work is genuine engineering — at least one of these bureaus ingests a delimited format rather than Metro 2 at all. We would rather tell you that now than book you into a date we cannot hold. Early registrants go first and get a real timeline as soon as terms land.
What happens to my nationwide reporting when those go live?
Nothing changes. Alternative-data destinations become additional targets on the file you already produce. Your Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis submissions continue on exactly the same cycle, from the same data, with the same validation.
What am I committing to by registering interest?
Nothing. There is no contract, no deposit, and no obligation attached to the form. You are telling us the alternative-data coverage is worth building and what you would report. If enough lenders raise their hand, we finish it — and you hear from us first.
Ready to report this cycle?
Send us a sample export and we’ll come back with a validated, bureau-ready first file — and an honest read on what your portfolio can get approved for.
Want the alternative-data bureaus too?
Clarity, DataX, Teletrack, FactorTrust, and MicroBilt are not live destinations yet. Enough committed lenders and we finish the commercial terms and build it — not enough, and we will tell you that too.
Already furnishing with BureauRelay and want this for an existing portfolio? Contact us directly and we’ll flag your account.