Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

When Lewis Tappan founded the Mercantile Agency in 1841, he believed that his new venture could standardize the flow of credit in the United States. From his own experience as a merchant, Tappan saw the need for a professionally-managed credit system, with credit decisions based upon sound information. During the first half of the 19th century, wholesale commission merchants based in the large urban cities were increasingly providing goods and supplies to rural merchants, jobbers, and general stores located miles away in the interior of the country. The wholesale commission merchants indiscriminately extended credit to country merchants and jobbers. They rarely had a choice, because sound information about credit-worthiness was hard to come by and frequently inaccurate. Tappan believed that if this information could be centralized, then the flow of credit would become more efficient. This would alleviate the problems of the urban commission merchants and provide more flexibility for honest and hard-working jobbers and country store merchants.

Tappan soon established a network of local correspondents, who gathered and reported business information on merchants and jobbers in their area. Twice a year, the correspondents sent their reports to the Mercantile Agency's headquarters in New York City, where clerks recorded the information into large ledger books. The correspondents were expected to report on a potential borrower's trade style, capital, present location and length of residence, and what medium they operated on most frequently. The agency's correspondents were typically lawyers who lived in the area they covered, and Tappan expected them to be men of high moral standing in their communities. The correspondents were not compensated directly by the Mercantile Agency, instead they were granted exclusive rights to collect the debts owed to Tappan's subscribers. The agency sold its credit information to subscribers for a fee. The subscription fee was tiered based upon the subscriber's annual earnings. By 1843, Lewis Tappan had over one hundred and fifty correspondents in the northeast.

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