Credit Bureaus

Credit bureaus collect and provide information about the credit history of individual consumers.

Financial institutions and businesses that grant credit use credit reports provided by the bureaus to make a decision about your creditworthiness. Then, as you pay (or don't pay) your debt according to the terms, they report the status of your account to the bureaus. The information can be positive (whether you are current, or whether or not the account is paid as agreed) or it could be derogatory, indicating 30, 60, 90 days late payments, charge-offs, etc.

Your payment information is provided to the creditbureau members having a permissible purpose to see it, along with public record information obtained from courts and court records. 

More than 1000 local and regional credit bureaus exist in  the United States, most of which are owned or under contract with the three major credit reporting agencies: Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax.

More than 170 million people in the United States have credit records, and over 500 million credit reports are provided each year.  The credit bureaus don't make decisions about your credit. It is up to the individual lender, employer, landlord, or other institution to use the information and to make decisions according to their own policies.