Bob Broeksmit reemphasized the Mortgage Bankers Association’s singular stance on single-bureau credit reporting Wednesday, declaring in a blog post that “when used properly, one score can tell lenders what they need to know.”

The MBA president and CEO, who formally unveiled the association’s credit reporting stance last summer, believes the mainstay “tri-merge” framework — referring to reports that pull data from all three major credit bureaus — adds costs without meaningfully reducing underwriting risk for conforming loans delivered to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

To underline his position, Broeksmit cited research published in March by the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center, which noted that while there is “substantial cross-bureau score variation across the credit spectrum,” the think tank observed “credit score performance is broadly similar across bureaus, with no meaningful differences in predicting loan outcomes.”

Parsing those apparently contradictory findings, the AEI analysts warned that a risk to the single-bureau proposal is the potential for “score shopping,” meaning selecting the highest credit score to obtain a favorable loan outcome rather than presenting an accurate snapshot of a borrower’s creditworthiness.

To mitigate that risk, Broeksmit supports “clear business rules” that would prevent lenders from gaming the system.

“For example, lenders should be prohibited from pulling multiple scores and cherry-picking the highest — if you pull three reports/scores, you must submit all three,” the MBA leader wrote. “Lenders could also be required to select a specific bureau — who would compete for that business — for the initial credit pull.”

Ultimately, Broeksmit concluded that credit score reform should be tempered by “enforceable guardrails that prevent manipulation.”

“Without them,” he stated, “we risk trading one inefficiency for a new form of gaming that ultimately harms consumers and market integrity.”