But one broker says they wouldn't be comfortable with just one score
The ongoing battle between the mortgage and credit reporting industries continued on Monday, as one major trade organization continued lobbying for changes.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) posted a letter on its website Monday that it sent to FHFA director Bill Pulte on Friday, urging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reverse course on the required tri-merge for higher credit score borrowers.
The letter, signed by Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of the MBA, asks the head of the GSEs to approve a change that would require only one credit score to be pulled for borrowers with a credit score of 700 or higher.
“We strongly urge you to end the requirement for a tri-merge credit report for every loan purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and instead allow lenders the option to rely on a single credit report if the initial report has a credit score of 700 or above,” Broeksmit said in his letter. “A single report for borrowers with good credit would encourage competition among the bureaus to improve accuracy and lower costs.
“Single-file reports are safely used in virtually every other consumer finance market, such as home equity, auto, and unsecured consumer lending. Allowing a single-file option in the conventional mortgage market, with appropriate guardrails, will spur competition, improve service, and lower costs for borrowers.
Is one score enough?
One question brokers are asking is whether a move from a tri-merge to save money is worth the risks, especially given that not every credit provider reports to all three bureaus. Some buy now, pay later providers report to just one, or even zero, credit bureaus.
Mark Gelbman (pictured top), a mortgage advisor with Union Home Mortgage, wasn’t entirely comfortable with the move to a single credit score.
“Although I am all for driving down the price of credit reports and opening up some sense of competition, I am not comfortable using just one score,” Gelbman told Mortgage Professional America. “I would be OK with two scores. If the bureaus were forced to share info, we could go to a single score because the info would be the same across all three reports. Using two scores should create some competition among the bureaus.”
Surging credit costs
Brokers have been frustrated by the rising costs of credit reporting. After reports surfaced about price increases for 2026, many in the industry turned to social media to voice frustrations.
That includes Brendan McKay, chief advocacy officer and co-founder of the Broker Action Coalition (BAC). He felt like this issue had reached a breaking point.
“It’s burning like even hotter than it necessarily has in years past, although every December there's some level of uproar about it,” McKay told Mortgage Professional America. “It's just pushing us past the breaking point, and it's year after year of the credit bureaus just displaying awful behavior, and it's gotten completely out of control.
“We haven't done the math quite yet, but the credit report costs are approaching a 500% increase in the last four or five years, and it's horrible.”
All about risk versus cost
Where people fall on the issue generally depends on the level of risk they think exists versus the cost savings of making the change.
Dan Smith, president and CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA), which represents the three credit bureaus, said in a recent op-ed in American Banker that dropping even one score could change who gets qualified for a mortgage.
“Recent research from TransUnion and Equifax demonstrates the dangers of eliminating even one bureau from the process,” Smith said. “Data from Equifax shows that missing a single tradeline can cause up to 27.8 million consumers to drop to lower score bands, leaving 10 million consumers potentially unscorable and causing 26% to shift from loan-eligible to declined.
“TransUnion found that borrowers affected by the bi-merge system could pay an additional $6,600 in mortgage interest over the loan's lifetime. This is the type of potential consumer harm that could come under a single-pull or bi-merge system.”
Brendan McKay of the Broker Action Coalition warns that rising credit report costs have pushed brokers to a breaking point. He says the structure allows unchecked pricing, calling for stronger oversight and louder industry pushback.https://t.co/IyHAm5uqaf
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) December 5, 2025
Broeksmit countered that in his letter to Pulte, stating that by setting the bar at a 700 credit score, reducing the number of reports pulled would bring little additional risk but would provide major cost savings.
“Given the recent exorbitant price hikes, removing the current tri-merge framework must be a part of the Administration’s affordability initiatives,” Broeksmit said. “MBA stands ready to work with the FHFA and the GSEs to implement a credit reporting framework that uses a single credit report for borrowers with a credit score above a specified threshold.
“MBA members have reviewed their own data and found narrow variances in tradeline coverage and credit scores on borrowers with credit scores of 700 and above. Based on these assessments, we believe that a tri-merge requirement for borrowers with scores of 700 and above adds costs but little additional value in risk prediction.”
You can read the entire letter from the MBA to the FHFA on its website.
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