ChexSystems: Who They Are and How it Affects You

ChexSystems is a company that maintains a subscriber membership service used in the banking industry. The members consist mainly of Banks, and Credit Unions, but can include other types of Financial Institutions.

It provides its members with what it calls deposit account verification services. The members use the information that ChexSystems provides to identify applicants that have had what they classify as a suspect banking history.

ChexSystems maintains a central database containing all of the information that has been reported to them. This information is shared among the network of member banks and credit unions to assess the level of risk in opening new accounts.

When someone applies to open a new checking account at a ChexSystems member bank, a ChexSystems inquiry is made. If the inquiry is returned stating that the person has had previous problems with another bank, that individual will often be denied from opening the account based on that ChexSystems report.

For this reason ChexSystems is considered as a Consumer Reporting Agency. This makes ChexSystems subject to the same laws as the Credit Bureaus that we are all familiar with: Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union.

And like the Credit Bureaus