Equifax subsidiary The Work Number will begin providing mortgage lenders and other consumer credit underwriters verifications of employment and income for self-employed individuals.
The St. Louis-based company says one-in-nine Americans are classified as self-employed. Without W-2 or other third-party documents, they face trouble proving their financial status to lenders, who are wary of fraud associated with misrepresentations on self-reported employment and income statements.
The Work Number provides automated VOE/VOI checks through its database of more than 250 million payroll records, but also performs manual checks when an applicant’s data isn’t available.
With the self-employment verification service, those same staffers that handle the manual payroll checks will check for a self-employed person’s business listing from a state regulatory site or other general business information from a trusted, third-party source, and provide document images to lenders.
Additionally, the company says its staff can contact the applicant’s tax preparer to provide a comprehensive financial report.
“Our goal is to help financial institutions and our other clients rapidly and independently verify stated employment claims of the self-employed without incurring additional risk, administrative cost, or compliance concerns,” said The Work Number’s president Janet Ford, in a press statement.
