TransUnion credit bureau data (Canada, restricted access)

Restricted individual-level data: not exercised here

This is restricted TransUnion Canada credit-bureau microdata (personally identifiable in raw form). It is not an off-the-shelf research purchase and not publicly downloadable: it carries no provenance badge because there is no access path we can run here. Researchers reach it only under a restricted research agreement, anonymized. The page documents what the data is and the gotchas; treat it as unverified. This is the honest grade under the institute’s Verified discipline.

TransUnion Canada credit-bureau data is the monthly, near population-wide individual credit record for Canada: borrower characteristics (age, credit score, location at the forward-sortation-area level, non-mortgage debt), mortgage identity, switching activity between lenders, and credit inquiries. Its value for research is the combination of full population coverage and the ability to follow borrowers across lenders over time. A paper we distill uses it: Allen & Li use TransUnion monthly credit-bureau records for borrower characteristics, mortgage identity, switching, and inquiries, linked to OSFI contract-level mortgage data, to study dynamic competition in negotiated mortgage pricing.

• Cost: not an off-the-shelf research purchase. Restricted-access individual microdata.
• Source: TransUnion Canada.
• Coverage: near population-wide consumers with a credit file in Canada, monthly; location is typically at the forward-sortation-area (FSA) level, not the exact address.

Access (restricted)

• No public download; PII in raw form. Raw records are personally identifiable and cannot be posted; research uses anonymized extracts.
• Through a restricted research agreement. Access is granted per project under strict privacy terms; there is no standing way for a third party to reach the same data.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; they are documented, not verified here.

• Only the credit-visible population. Consumers without a credit file are absent; the panel is not literally everyone. Do not generalize to the credit-invisible.
• Geography is coarse (FSA). Location is at the forward-sortation-area level, not the address; merging to fine-grained local data (house prices, demographics) inherits that coarseness. Match at the FSA level deliberately.
• Scores and tradelines follow bureau definitions. Credit scores and account/tradeline fields are TransUnion constructs that change over time and can differ from Equifax Canada; a score is not a fixed cross-vintage or cross-bureau concept. Pin the model and codebook.
• Mortgage identity and switching need careful linking. Identifying the same mortgage across months and a switch between lenders relies on the bureau’s tradeline matching, which has error; verify the switching definition against the lender-side (OSFI) data.
• Reporting lags and updates. Tradelines update on lender reporting cycles, so a month’s snapshot can lag actual events; be explicit about the reporting-date basis.
• Not redistributable. Results can be reported but the microdata cannot be shared or re-pulled by others. Plan for non-reproducibility of the raw inputs.

Citation

Cite the source and arrangement, e.g.: TransUnion Canada credit-bureau records, restricted; accessed under research agreement, YYYY-MM-DD. State the sample window, the geographic level (FSA), and the score/codebook vintage.