OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2016. There’s just no way around it. Income verification is an essential part of the mortgage loan process because it’s the best way to gauge a prospective borrower’s ability to pay. But what’s necessary isn’t necessarily simple, and that’s true for income verification.

It requires contacting the applicant’s employer at the beginning of the loan process and again at the end, just before closing. And income verification happens at the same time that processors are working through all the other verifications required in the mortgage lending process — from checking for an official photo ID to obtaining two years of tax information.

At Equifax, we can help lenders cut through the complexity with our proprietary database, The Work Number. It enables fast, employer-provided income and employment verification by leveraging employment records from more than 6,100 employers nationwide.

The Work Number from Equifax:

  • Includes employment records from over 75% of Fortune 500 companies and a majority of federal government civilian employers
  • Contains both basic employment information and detailed employer compensation data, including wages, bonuses, commissions, overtime and, if available, salary history and pay-increase details
  • Includes payroll data that comes directly from employers and is updated every payroll cycle
  • Meets government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) requirements for third-party verifications in lieu of borrower-provided documentation
  • Delivers a wealth of actionable data to lenders within seconds

What’s more, if an applicant’s data is not currently available, the Equifax team of verification agents can manually conduct the income verification on behalf of the lender, generally in one to three business days. Our team can achieve this swift turnaround because it’s our specialty. We know how to quickly connect to the right resources and perform fast and fully documented income verifications so you can better meet your regulatory requirements and keep the loan approval process moving along.

For deeper insight into an applicant’s income, the IRS Income Verification from Equifax helps enable lenders to retrieve tax transcript forms via streamlined fulfillment through our direct connection with the IRS. Our upfront quality check, robust QC reporting capabilities, eSignature Capture offering, and other features can help lenders receive faster tax transcript results with fewer rejections from the IRS.

Our solution helps cover the income verification process, and it comes from a name financial institutions already know and trust. Lenders use Equifax-provided data every day to make informed decisions about whether they’re going to fund loans. Our verification services help them close higher-quality loans — and more of them.