A private firm that maintains consumer credit data files and provides credit information to authorized users for a fee WordNet 3.0 & Open English WordNet

A credit bureau is a data collection agency that gathers account information from various creditors and provides that information to a consumer reporting agency in the United States, a credit reference agency in the United Kingdom, a credit reporting body in Australia, a credit information company in India, Special Accessing Entity in the Philippines, and also to private lenders. Wikipedia