Equifax Business (Commercial Credit)

Equifax Business is one of the major US commercial bureaus, alongside Dun & Bradstreet and Experian Business. Its principal products include the Business Credit Report, a Payment Index (a 0-100 payment-performance measure conceptually similar to PAYDEX, where 90+ indicates paying on terms), the Business Credit Risk Score (predicting severe delinquency), and the Business Failure Score (predicting formal failure or closure within 12 months). Equifax's data footprint draws on trade experiences, banking and lease data, public records, and its membership in the Small Business Financial Exchange.

The Small Business Financial Exchange (SBFE) connection is Equifax's distinctive strength: SBFE members — banks, card issuers, and leasing companies — contribute how small businesses pay their loans, cards, and leases. That gives Equifax visibility into financial-obligation behavior that trade-only files miss. A business that pays suppliers promptly but has gone delinquent on its bank debt is a materially different risk than its trade file suggests, and Equifax-sourced reports are more likely to surface it.

Practical guidance mirrors the other bureaus: verify entity match before relying on the report, weight the report sections (trade detail, public records, inquiries) over the single headline score, and consider Equifax as the second pull on exposures large enough to justify it — its file overlaps imperfectly with D&B's and Experian's, so the marginal pull genuinely adds coverage rather than repeating it.