Mercantile agencies, or commercial agencies, are organizations that are designed to collect, record, and distribute to regular clients information relative to the standing of commercial firms. They thus act as a sort of clearing house of information on customers' reliability.
In Great Britain and other some European countries, trade protective societies composed of merchants and tradesmen have been formed for the promotion of trade; their members exchange information regarding the standing of business houses. The societies had their origin in the associations formed in the mid-18th century for the purpose of disseminating information regarding bankruptcies, assignments and bills of sale.
The mercantile agency in the United States is a much more comprehensive organization and came into existence after the financial crisis of 1837. Trade in the United States had become scattered over a wide territory, communications were slow, and town merchants lacked adequate information as to the standing of many businessmen seeking credit. The severity of the collapse of 1837 was partly caused by to the insufficiency of that information. New York City merchants had suffered so severely that they were determined to organize a headquarters where reports regarding the standing of customers could be exchanged. Lewis Tappan (1788–1873), the founder of the Journal of Commerce (1828) and a prominent abolitionisr leader, undertook the work by establishing there in 1841 the Mercantile Agency, later Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, the first organization of its kind. The system has been developed and extended since.
Commercial law, also known as mercantile law or trade law, is the body of law that applies to the rights, relations, and conduct of persons and businesses engaged in commerce, merchandising, trade, and sales. It is often considered to be a branch of civil law and deals with issues of both private law and public law.
The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999–2001). It repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. With the bipartisan passage of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. Furthermore, it failed to give to the SEC or any other financial regulatory agency the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies. The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Banking in the United States began in the late 1790s along with the country's founding and has developed into highly influential and complex system of banking and financial services. Anchored by New York City and Wall Street, it is centered on various financial services namely private banking, asset management, and deposit security.
Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agencies, along with Experian and TransUnion. Equifax collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. In addition to credit and demographic data and services to business, Equifax sells credit monitoring and fraud prevention services directly to consumers.
Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (mutual) or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, members of a mutual usually receive a "windfall" payout, in the form of shares in the successor company, a cash payment, or a mixture of both. Mutualization or mutualisation is the opposite process, wherein a shareholder-owned company is converted into a mutual organization, typically through takeover by an existing mutual organization. Furthermore, re-mutualization depicts the process of aligning or refreshing the interest and objectives of the members of the mutual society.
The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is a company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. It is headquartered in Short Hills, a community in Millburn, New Jersey, U.S. The company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and finance, operations and supply, and sales and marketing professionals, as well as research and insights on global business issues, serving customers in government and industries such as communications, technology, strategic financial services, and retail/telecommunications/manufacturing markets. Often referred to as D&B, the company's database contains more than 300 million business records worldwide.
A privately held company, private company, or close corporation is a corporation that is not owned by the government, non-governmental organizations and by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members, which does not offer or trade its company stock (shares) to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned and traded or exchanged privately or over-the-counter. More ambiguous terms for a privately held company are closely held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company.
Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international financial research on bonds issued by commercial and government entities. Moody's, along with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies.
The Data Universal Numbering System, abbreviated as DUNS or D-U-N-S, is a proprietary system developed and managed by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) that assigns a unique numeric identifier, referred to as a "DUNS number" to a single business entity. It was introduced in 1963 to support D&B's credit reporting practice. It is standard worldwide. DUNS users include the European Commission, the United Nations, the United States government, and Apple. More than 50 global industry and trade associations recognize, recommend, or require DUNS. The DUNS database contains over 300 million entries for businesses throughout the world.
A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit reporting body in Australia, a credit information company (CIC) in India, Special Accessing Entity in the Philippines, and also to private lenders. It is not the same as a credit rating agency.
The New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) is a commodities exchange founded in 1870 by a group of one hundred cotton brokers and merchants at 1 Hanover Square in New York City. In 1998, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) became the parent company of the New York Cotton Exchange, and it is now owned by IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). Since 2003, its headquarters and trading facility have been in the New York Mercantile Exchange Building.
In numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of token coins is part of exonumia and token coins are token money. Tokens have a denomination either shown or implied by size, color or shape. "Tokens" are often made of cheaper metals: copper, pewter, aluminium, brass and tin were commonly used, while bakelite, leather, porcelain, and other less durable materials are also known.
Dex One Corporation was an American marketing company providing online, mobile and print search marketing via their DexKnows.com website, print yellow pages directories and pay-per-click ad networks in the U.S.
Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749 (1985), was a Supreme Court case which held that a credit reporting agency could be liable in defamation if it carelessly relayed false information that a business had declared bankruptcy when in fact it had not.
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the other agreed charges. The card issuer creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance.
The New York Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1768 by twenty New York City merchants, was the first commercial organization of its kind in the United States. Attracting the participation of a number of New York's most influential business leaders, such as John Jacob Astor, Peter Cooper, and J. Pierpont Morgan, its members were instrumental in the realization of several key initiatives in the region – including the Erie Canal, the Atlantic cable, and the New York City Transit Authority. The Chamber of Commerce survives today as the Partnership for New York City, which was formed from the 2002 merger of the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the New York City Partnership.
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Commercial credit reporting is the maintenance and reporting of credit histories and risks for commercial companies.
Dun's gazette for New South Wales, also published under a number of other titles, was an Australian weekly English language journal published in Sydney from 1909-1958.
Kreller Companies is an American corporate investigations and risk management firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since its founding in the late 1980s, it has advised clients on their use of third-party business information vendors. Today the firm offers a range of business intelligence services, including custom due diligence and investigations.
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