Mar 30 2004
MERit Credit Engine (MCE) supports the only two open standards for XML credit reports that have been adopted: The MISMO XML standard, developed and maintained by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization under sponsorship of the Mortgage Banker's Association, and HR-XML, developed, endorsed, and used by members of the open HR-XML Consortium. Don't be lulled into accepting a proprietary XML format that many entail large costs to make it compatible with future applications!

MISMO, the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (http://www.mismo.org) , has defined an open XML standard for credit reports as part of their larger schema for loan origination and loan servicing. A MISMO software interface is available.

The HR-XML Consortium (http://hr-xml.org) has developed XML standards for employment screening and human resources. Credit reports form an important part of the the HR-XML schema, and software for the HR-XML credit report specification simplifies implementation.

Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion do not have a single shared standard, and they do not provide credit reports formatted according to an open XML standard. Thus, credit report software, or a credit report toolkit for software developers is the solution, whether single-bureau or merged credit reports are needed.

The MERit Credit Engine can interface with the credit bureaus directly, gather credit data in the proprietary system-to-system formats, and convert it to one of the open XML credit report standards. XML data opens possibilities for web services and Microsoft .NET (dot net) credit report applications, whether or not the intended uses are in the mortgage or human resources fields. Tenant screening, insurance underwriting, identity verification, and credit scoring can benefit from the same XML standards.

MERit Credit Systems, Inc.( http://www.creditengine.net ) is a leading provider of desktop and server-based credit report retrieval software to access credit information from Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW), and Trans Union.

Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 can act as storage for the data, allowing retrieval by XML, SQL, or ActiveX COM objects.