On most mortgage files the lender absorbs the cost of the credit report. With bureau prices climbing again in 2026, that cost adds up fast, especially on applications that never reach closing. It does not have to sit with the lender. Borrower-paid ordering lets the borrower pay for their own report through a secure link, captures their e-signed authorization before the credit is pulled, delivers the required consumer disclosures, and imports the result straight into the loan officer's system. Credit Technologies offers this through SmartPay, and the lender decides how to use it.
Credit report and credit score costs have risen repeatedly in recent years, and 2026 has brought more of the same, including a mid-cycle increase that hit both credit reporting and credit scoring. The Mortgage Bankers Association has warned that credit costs could climb 40% to 50% on average in 2026. The increase lands harder than the headline number suggests, because credit is pulled multiple times on a single file, typically three times for one applicant and six times for a joint application, with re-pulls when a file ages past 120 days. Every increase multiplies across those pulls. On one file the cost looks small. Across a year of originations, including every application that never closes, it becomes a real and growing line on the lender's P&L, and the files that fall out are pure cost with no revenue to offset them. That is the pressure borrower-paid ordering is built to relieve.
Borrower-paid ordering lets the borrower, rather than the lender, pay for the credit report. The loan officer creates a secure, customized link in a few minutes and shares it with the borrower or a referral partner by email or text. The borrower completes the order, pays for the report, and e-signs their authorization. The result comes back to the loan officer ready to use. At Credit Technologies this is SmartPay, and it is built in and available now.
SmartPay does more than shift the cost. It handles compliance at both ends of the transaction.
Before the pull, because the borrower completes the order themselves, the process captures the consumer's specific, e-signed authorization, supporting permissible purpose and leaving a clean, documented consent trail on every file. The borrower can download their own copy.
After the pull, SmartPay delivers the consumer their actual mortgage FICO® scores and the key factors behind them, in the form of the required Risk-Based Pricing Disclosure Exception Notice, satisfying that disclosure requirement in the same step. That score access is its own benefit: the free and app-based scores most people see use different models, so the scores that actually decide a mortgage are rarely ones the borrower has already seen. SmartPay puts them in the borrower's hands instantly, while turning a manual, easy-to-miss disclosure into something automatic and consistent on every file.
SmartPay is set up as two links, one for a hard pull and one for a soft pull, each able to bundle other products as the lender chooses. That lets a lender match the cost to the stage of the file. Two common approaches:
Order everything up front. Use the hard-pull link so the borrower prepays for the full tri-merge credit report and any ancillary products the file will need through processing, underwriting, and closing. It is the simplest path, though it asks the borrower to cover the most cost at the very start.
Pre-qualify with a soft pull first. Use the soft-pull link so the borrower pays for a SoftQualify℠ soft-inquiry report, with or without trended data, to pre-qualify. SoftQualify costs up to 70% less than a tri-merge and does not affect the borrower's FICO score, and because it is a soft inquiry it does not set off the competitor solicitations a hard pull can trigger, which protects both the borrower and the lender's pipeline. This puts the cost of the earliest, most uncertain stage, the one most likely to fall out, on a low-cost report the borrower paid for. When the borrower moves forward, the lender uses the hard-pull link to order the full tri-merge required to process, underwrite, and close. By that point the loan is far more likely to close, and the report fee is typically collected at closing. The lender's out-of-pocket cost approaches zero on both ends: once on the fall-out-prone pre-qual the borrower paid for, and again on the required report that closing covers.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive. The lender chooses, even file by file, based on the borrower and the situation.
Borrower-paid ordering is available across the industry. What separates one version from another is how it is set up and supported. The Credit Technologies version pairs the consent-first, e-signed workflow, the disclosures handled automatically, and the flexibility above with live, US-based analyst support behind every file, the same support that has defined how CTI works with lenders since 1990.
See how SmartPay works on your files. Schedule a demo.
The borrower pays for their own credit report through a secure link the loan officer sends, so the lender does not absorb the cost. The loan officer receives a confirmation of every transaction, and the report imports directly into the LOS.
SmartPay is a borrower-paid credit report ordering option from Credit Technologies. The loan officer creates a customized link in minutes and shares it with a borrower or referral partner, who pays for the report and e-signs authorization before it is pulled.
Yes. Use SmartPay's soft-pull link so the borrower pays for a SoftQualify soft-pull pre-qual, up to 70% less than a tri-merge with no FICO impact. When the borrower proceeds, the hard-pull link orders the full tri-merge, a fee typically collected at closing.
The borrower provides a specific, e-signed authorization before the credit pull and can download a copy. That supports permissible purpose and leaves a clean, consistent consent trail on every file.
Yes. SmartPay delivers the Risk-Based Pricing Disclosure Exception Notice, which gives the consumer their credit scores and the key score factors, satisfying that disclosure requirement automatically on every file.
Yes. SmartPay gives the borrower the FICO scores used to underwrite the loan. The free and app-based scores most consumers see use different models, so the scores that decide a mortgage are rarely ones a borrower has already seen.
The link takes minutes to create and share. Once the borrower completes the order, the loan officer receives an email confirmation and the report is instantly available to import directly into the LOS.