Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company on Your Credit Report
In short: Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company is a state-chartered commercial bank that is not a member of the Federal Reserve System, headquartered in Leesville, Louisiana. FDIC certificate 9319 records the charter as established January 1, 1928. That makes it a pre-deposit-insurance charter, so its reporting history predates most of the systems that now carry it. On the 06/30/2026 call report it reported $541 million in total assets and 9 FDIC-reported offices. Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company books its loans on its own balance sheet, so it furnishes its own tradelines — meaning an FCRA §623 dispute goes straight to the party holding the underlying records, in parallel with the §611 route through the bureaus. Information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable can be disputed under the FCRA. Outcomes depend on what the furnisher can verify, and results vary.
Who Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company actually is
Charter details above are from the FDIC BankFind public database.
What makes this creditor different
Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company is an FDIC-insured state bank under certificate 9319, headquartered in Leesville, Louisiana, with $541 million in total assets and 9 FDIC-reported offices as of the 06/30/2026 call report; its charter dates to January 1, 1928.
How Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company appears on your credit report
Treat Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company as an original creditor rather than a collection agency — the dispute route is different. At $541 million in assets, credit reporting is usually handled by a compact back-office group, so a narrow, specific dispute tends to move faster than a broad one. Reference the account by last four digits and origination date, isolate the one field you can disprove, and copy all three bureaus to keep the §611 and §623 clocks running together. Whether anything changes depends on the underlying records, and that varies by account.
Names it may report under
Products that commonly show up
- ◆Personal and signature loans originated at its 9 Louisiana offices
- ◆Mortgage and home-equity credit originated in the Louisiana market
- ◆Overdraft lines and deposit-linked credit tied to Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company checking accounts
Grounds to dispute a Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company entry
Each of these is a reason a Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company tradeline may be inaccurate or unverifiable. None of them assures removal — they are the angles worth checking on your own report.
- ◆Mortgage payoff recorded by the title company but not updated by Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company
- ◆Charge-off reported by Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company after the account was settled in full
- ◆Duplicate Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company tradeline created when the account migrated between core systems
- ◆Account balance or credit limit reported incorrectly
- ◆Payment reported late when it was made inside the grace period
- ◆Date of first delinquency re-aged to extend how long it can report
- ◆Account still reporting as open after it was closed, or vice versa
- ◆Duplicate tradeline for the same account after an internal transfer
- ◆Account belongs to someone else with a similar name, or is the result of identity theft
Disputing an original creditor is not the same as disputing a collector
Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company is an original creditor — the institution whose name was on the account when it was opened. That matters for two reasons. First, the FDCPA, which governs debt collectors, generally does not apply to a creditor collecting its own debt in its own name, so the “debt validation” request that works against a collection agency is not the right tool here. Second, as the furnisher of the tradeline, Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company has direct obligations under FCRA §623 to investigate a dispute you send it and to correct or delete information it cannot verify as accurate.
Dispute with the bureaus — FCRA §611
File with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. They must generally investigate within 30 days and tell the furnisher. Free, and you can do it yourself.
Dispute with the furnisher — FCRA §623
Send Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company a direct written dispute. It must investigate and must not continue reporting information it knows is inaccurate. Keep copies and proof of delivery.
Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company questions, answered
Is Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company FDIC-insured, and what is its certificate number?
Yes. Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company holds FDIC certificate 9319. The FDIC record shows a charter established January 1, 1928, headquarters in Leesville, LA, and 9 FDIC-reported offices with $541 million in total assets as of the 06/30/2026 call report. It is a state-chartered commercial bank that is not a member of the Federal Reserve System, supervised by the FDIC and its state banking regulator.
Who regulates Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company, and where do I escalate if a dispute fails?
As a state-chartered commercial bank that is not a member of the Federal Reserve System, Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company answers primarily to the FDIC and its state banking regulator. When a §623 dispute to the bank and a §611 dispute to the bureaus both come back verified and you still hold contrary documentation, the next steps are a CFPB complaint and, if needed, the private right of action FCRA §§616–617 gives you. None of that requires paying anyone.
How many credit-card complaints does the CFPB show against Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company?
No number is published here. When we queried the CFPB credit-card complaint data, no company key matched Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company exactly, and we will not approximate one by partial-name matching — that routinely pulls in unrelated companies with similar names. Rather than imply a count we cannot source, we leave it out. The database is public and searchable at consumerfinance.gov.
How long can a Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company charge-off stay on my credit report?
A charged-off Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company account can generally report for up to seven years from the date of first delinquency — the original missed payment that was never brought current, not the date Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company charged it off and not the date it was sold to a collector. If that date has been moved forward, the re-aging is itself a reportable FCRA inaccuracy.
What is the difference between disputing with Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company and disputing with a collector?
The records sit in different places. Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company originated the account, so it has the application, the statement history and the payment postings. A collector works from a data file it was given, which is usually thinner. Disputing with Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company under §623 puts your challenge in front of whoever can actually check it against source documents.
Does Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company report to all three credit bureaus?
Not necessarily — reporting is voluntary, and a community institution may furnish to a subset of the bureaus on staggered cycles. Review all three reports side by side. Treat a balance discrepancy as a likely timing difference, but treat a conflicting account status or date of first delinquency on the Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company tradeline as a genuine dispute target.
Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company was acquired or changed names — why does my report show two accounts?
Duplicates like this are almost always a data-migration residue rather than two real debts. Because a charter predating federal deposit insurance has been through enough system migrations that stale status codes are the common defect, a Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company account can surface under a predecessor name alongside the current one. Dispute for removal of the redundant entry, identifying both by last four digits and open date, and insist on deletion rather than a status change.
Can I dispute Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company reporting myself, without paying anyone?
Entirely. Nothing about disputing Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company reporting requires a paid service. Put the inaccurate field in writing to the bank, send a matching dispute to each bureau, and retain copies. Anyone promising you a specific point increase or a removal timeline is describing something they cannot control.
What should I check first on Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company reporting?
Three fields decide how long an item lasts and how heavily it weighs: date of first delinquency, account status, and high balance or credit limit. On this charter, a charter predating federal deposit insurance has been through enough system migrations that stale status codes are the common defect. Compare each against your own statements before writing, because a dispute that names one provably wrong field resolves far more often than a general request to remove the account.
Other creditors on credit reports
This page is general information about consumer rights, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Crowned Credit is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company; company names are used only to identify the institution a consumer may see on a credit report. Crowned Credit does not promise any particular outcome; results vary by individual circumstances and by what a furnisher is able to verify. Accurate, verifiable information generally cannot be removed from a credit report. You have the right to dispute inaccurate information yourself, for free, directly with the credit bureaus and with the furnisher.
Ready to Improve Your Credit Score?
Take the first step towards financial freedom today. Schedule your free consultation with our credit repair experts.