Mortgage
FHFA's Pulte set to drop tri-merge credit rule for Fannie and Freddie
By Real Estate Wire Staff, . Real Estate Wire.
Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and board chair of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is expected to announce within weeks that the two government-sponsored enterprises will move from tri-merge to bi-merge credit reporting, meaning lenders would pull scores from two of the three major credit bureaus rather than all three. Bloomberg first reported the plan, citing a person familiar with the matter, and Scotsman Guide, National Mortgage News, HousingWire and Mortgage Professional America all covered it. All four outlets point to the Mortgage Bankers Association annual conference in Chicago on October 12 as the likely venue for the announcement.
Under the current framework, every loan file delivered to Fannie or Freddie must include a combined credit report drawing on data from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. A bi-merge model would let lenders choose any two of the three. HousingWire, citing Bloomberg, reported that the policy is expected to take effect within one to three months of being announced. The FHFA did not respond to comment requests from Scotsman Guide, National Mortgage News or HousingWire.
The market reaction was immediate. National Mortgage News reported that TransUnion shares fell 4.7% and Equifax dropped 5.9% in after-hours trading on Thursday.
This is not the first time the proposal has surfaced. Former FHFA Director Sandra Thompson announced plans for a bi-merge shift during the Biden administration, but the move was shelved in January 2025 amid concerns about risk-pricing accuracy. Eight Senate Banking Committee Republicans wrote to Thompson in October 2023 urging her to abandon the plan, arguing, as National Mortgage News quoted them, that "we cannot afford a reduction in the accuracy and predictive power of data provided to the taxpayer-backed Enterprises with no meaningful benefits for consumers." Pulte told Scotsman Guide in a July 2025 interview that the proposal had been tabled but that he was open to revisiting it. On September 3, he posted on social media that the FHFA was "seriously considering bi-merge," a post HousingWire quoted in full.
The Mortgage Bankers Association has publicly pushed for the change and, according to Mortgage Professional America, has gone further: MBA president and CEO Robert Broeksmit has advocated for a single-bureau pull for borrowers above a strong-credit threshold. Mortgage Professional America quoted Broeksmit calling the tri-merge requirement "a license for price gouging and ripping off consumers" in a January blog post. The Broker Action Coalition has also been critical of bureau pricing, with co-founder Brendan McKay telling Mortgage Professional America that Pulte's public pressure on the bureaus "for the first time in a real way, matters."
The policy debate sits squarely inside the Trump administration's broader push on housing affordability. National Mortgage News noted that Pulte has repeatedly called on the credit bureaus and FICO to reduce fees as part of an effort to bring down loan closing costs against a backdrop of high home prices and elevated mortgage rates.
The harder question the reporting does not yet answer is whether dropping one bureau actually reduces risk-pricing accuracy in a meaningful way, or whether the 2023 Senate Republican objections still hold weight in a different political environment. The MBA's preference for a single-bureau option for strong-credit borrowers suggests the industry itself is not unified on where the floor should be. If Pulte does announce on October 12, the implementation timeline and any carve-outs for higher-risk loan profiles will be the details to watch.