No, we are not aware of any regulations that prohibit a credit report from being reused for the purpose of reviewing a subsequent credit application, subject to the requirements below. As such, we believe your bank may continue to reuse credit reports less than sixty days old for the permissible purpose of credit underwriting. Of course, your bank may retain the right to make exceptions and pull a new credit report for underwriting purposes.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires a credit report user to “certify the purposes for which the information is sought” and “that the information will be used for no other purpose.” The Federal Trade Commission has approved the use of “blanket” certifications by credit report users, and in most cases, such use does not require individual certifications for each credit report. Provided that your bank already has provided a certification indicating that you use credit reports for the permissible purpose of credit underwriting, reusing a report for that purpose will not violate the FCRA. Your added certification that you will use the credit report for “no other purpose” is directed at preventing abuses, such as pulling a credit report for underwriting purposes and later using it for impermissible marketing purposes.

Additionally, we note that when reusing an existing credit report when an individual applies for a consumer-purpose residential mortgage loan, you should provide a new FCRA credit score disclosure and “Notice to the Home Loan Applicant.”

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

• Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681b(a)(3)(A) (A permissible purpose to obtain a credit report exists when the user “intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer; . . .”)

• Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681e(a) (A consumer reporting agency must require users of credit reports to “identify themselves, certify the purposes for which the information is sought, and certify that the information will be used for no other purpose. . . .”)

• FTC, 40 Years of Experience with the FCRA (July 2011), page 66 (“Once the CRA [consumer reporting agency] obtains a certification from a user (e.g., a creditor) . . . stating that the user will use consumer reports only for permissible purposes, it need not require the user to certify its purpose for each individual report obtained unless there is reason to believe the user may be violating its certification. . . . A CRA may accept a blanket certification that lists multiple permissible purposes.”)

• Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Senate Report 104-185 (1995), page 39 (“Specifically, the bill provides that a person may use or obtain information from a consumer report only if the consumer report was obtained for one of the permissible purposes set forth in section 604 of the FCRA and is within the scope of the certification between the person and the provider of the report. The bill, however, does not require separate certifications for each request, but only that the request be within the scope of the applicable certification agreement. Thus, a person who obtains a consumer report will be in compliance with new section 604(f) if the person obtains the report for one of the permissible purposes set forth in section 604, and the report is covered under the person’s certification agreement with the provider of the consumer report.”)

• Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681g(g) (The credit score disclosure and “Notice to the Home Loan Applicant” must be provided by “[a]ny person who makes or arranges loans and who uses a consumer credit score, as defined in subsection (f), in connection with an application initiated or sought by a consumer for a closed end loan or the establishment of an open end loan for a consumer purpose that is secured by 1 to 4 units of residential real property . . . .”)