Overview

Merit Credit Systems has announced that it is shipping version 3.0 of the Merit Credit Engine ActiveX Toolkit.

Designed for use by software developers and OEMs, the new release makes it easier than ever to access the three main repositories of consumer credit information – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

The MCE ActiveX Toolkit is a set of ActiveX (COM) objects that can be accessed easily using any programming language. With just a few lines of script or program source code, a software developer can create a request for a credit report, send it to the bureau via the Internet, display the report in any of several formats, and access the report data for decisioning and scorecard calculations.

Unlike other "credit toolkits," the Merit interface provides much more than just the human-readable report. It provides access to the individual line-item data in easy-to-use form; for instance, a developer can cycle through the individual Tradelines and Public Records to extract such useful information as past due amounts, current balances, percentage of credit available in revolving accounts, and much more. The Merit software also provides a comprehensive Report Summary to simplify decisioning and custom scoring tasks and to flag critical issues such as FACTA alerts and bureau notices of potential identify theft fraud.

As with other Merit credit software, this toolkit accesses the bureaus directly. There are no per-transaction fees other than those charged by the bureau itself. There is no third-party host system to worry about -- the customer’s software connects directly to the bureau using secure hypertext protocols for fast, safe access to credit data. Reports are typically available within two seconds of posting the request. The credit data is safely stored in an encrypted database for subsequent access at any time.

"We took the core functionality of our Credit Engine and exposed it through ActiveX interfaces," said Dan Rollins, lead developer on the project. "The result is a small-footprint set of tools that is incredibly easy to use: Populate the CreditInquiry object to identify the consumer and then invoke the Send() method. Use the CreditResponse object to get the print-image report or analyze the report data. You can literally pull and display a credit report with eight lines of program code."

With the XML add-on module, the credit data can be accessed in MISMO XML or HR-XML format. With the Merge add-on module, reports from multiple bureaus can be combined into a single report or XML document for ease of display and analysis. Additional add-on modules enable access to First American CREDCO, CBC/Innovis, and other consumer-data sources.

For information about the MeritCredit Engine ActiveX Toolkit, contact:
MERit Credit Systems:
http://creditengine.net:
CreditEngine.NET:
(626) 963-8313

This information has been provided by the vendor and has not been evaluated by O'Reilly's editorial staff.