Why Prescreen credit triggers aren’t likely going anywhere…

The FCRA provides guidelines for the use of consumer credit information by lenders. One provision allows lenders to access prescreened lists of potential customers who meet certain criteria – but there has been debate over whether this provision violates consumers' privacy rights.

In fact, regulations precisely like those proposed were brought up in 2007, 2018, 2020, 2022, and now again in 2023. 

While it's possible Congress may pass a regulation overwriting FCRA prescreen credit triggers, it's unlikely to happen for several reasons.

• First, the financial industry has strong lobbying efforts to maintain the current system, which has been in place for decades. 
• Second, changing the FCRA would require a significant amount of political capital and bipartisan support, which is difficult to achieve in the current political climate. 
• Third, any proposed changes to the FCRA would likely face legal challenges, adding further obstacles to passing such a regulation.

Besides that, some experts argue that prescreened credit offers can benefit consumers by giving them access to the credit they may not have otherwise been aware of. Removing this option could have unintended consequences, such as limiting credit options for those with limited credit histories or those who may not meet traditional credit requirements.

Overall, while there may be valid concerns about confusion to consumers, it's unlikely a regulation overwriting access to credit triggers will be passed.

That being said, our focus is less on mortgage trigger events, and more on predictive scenarios and intent signals prior to the trigger.  Our goal is to notify our users through predictive alerts within 90 days prior to the inquiry event ever happening.  This gives loan officers the chance to play offense rather than defense and connect with the borrower when they are starting to think about listing their home, purchasing, or refinancing.  Our predictive alerts have continued to improve over the 17 years we have been in business and we are devoting resources to continually improve conversion on our predictive scenario alerts.