[rvern]

Equifax has an incentive not to get things wrong because their customers care about having accurate information. Nationalizing credit ratings would remove this incentive. That Equifax still gets things wrong does not imply that things would not be even more wrong if it was nationalized.

[kolpa]

If their customers aren't checking accuracy and complaining to Equifax (and they aren't), then the incentive has no effect.

[chii]

The banks are their customers. And you can bet you bottom dollars the banks do care for accuracy.

[munk-a]

The banks don't actually eat the risk of inaccurately offered loans, this is why the housing market collapsed (simplified). Most of the logical incentives in financial sectors have become corrupted by perverse incentives with securities trading.

[closeparen]

Turning away good borrowers and extending credit to bad ones are both terrible for business if you’re a lender. That’s the incentive.