Does AMEX (Canada) use Equifax now?

Since forever and ever (well, my recent memory, which is admittedly short), American Express Canada has always pulled Transunion when making a credit decision. This kind of sucked, because most other valuable Canadian creditors also pull Transunion, and this made the case of having excessive credit checks all too common.

I recently applied (for yet another) AMEX card [75,000 Membership Rewards points with the American Express Platinum Business card!], and to my surprise, they pulled my Equifax credit report. The same thing happened to my partner as well. For me, this is absolutely fantastic, because: (a) my Transunion bureau is riddled with credit checks, and AMEX is my most frequent creditor lately, so having them pull on Equifax reduced the impact on my Transunion bureau, and; (b) in my experience, when there’s a problem, Equifax is much easier to work with.

I don’t know if this is a one-off, but there’s nothing “special” on my Transunion report that would have AMEX pull Equifax. Anybody else with a similar experience? What do you think?

5 Comments

  1. Just applied for AMEX Air Miles Platinum a few days ago. I will order my credit report and let you know when I receive it.

  2. Which card was it? In my experience Amex checks transunion for charge cards, and transunion + equifax for credit cards.

  3. Which other valuable Canadian creditors pull TU? I have only had MBNA and RBC

    TD, CIBC and Scotiabank all pull Equifax for me.

  4. CIBC now pulls from Transunion as I found out the hard way as my bank (CIBC) told me to get my credit score to at least 640 and they will look at getting me a Visa. SO I went in and well they used TRansunion and I was shocked as there is a 100 pt difference and just wasted my time.

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