Loan Companies That Use Experian Only? We Investigated...

Short Answer

We were unable to find information on any banks or lenders that use Experian only when pulling a loan applicant’s credit report. Most loan companies use a random pull from either Experian, TransUnion, or Equifax. For more details, see below.

Loan Companies That Use Experian Only

There are three major credit reporting bureaus that lenders use to check your credit history: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Lenders also report your payment activity — good and bad — to these bureaus.

Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax each use their own algorithms to come up with a credit score. As a result, your score may vary by bureau. To find out why your score varies, see our related article.

Knowing you have the strongest credit score at Experian might prompt you to look for lenders that pull only from Experian. However, most lenders informed us that their credit checks are a random pull from one of the three bureaus. As a result, we are unable to provide a list of lenders that exclusively use Experian.

We contacted several banks that issue personal, auto, and home loans, including Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Navy Federal Credit Union, Regions, SunTrust, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. None of these banks exclusively use Experian. We were told that obtaining an applicant’s credit report is done through a random pull. Bank of America corporate customer service representatives told us that while Experian is often used, there is no way to guarantee that the bank won’t pull from Equifax or TransUnion.

Additionally, we contacted several loan companies, including ACE Cash Express, Capital Good Fund, Cash Central, Lending Tree, NetCredit, and Quicken Loans. None of these companies exclusively use Experian. Like the banks, these loan companies told us that credit checks are conducted through a random pull.