Who needs a Gossip Girl, when the whole community is ready to dish on payment behaviors?

Today, community-driven business credit bureau Cortera launched Cortera Circles, a peer-to-peer risk information sharing tool. Simply put, the online tool lets peers share their payment experiences with businesses. The company’s marketing team plugs it as LinkedIn Groups meets business credit reporting.

Specifically, Cortera Circles lets users:

- Find and join Circles based on location, industry or common trading partners;
- Build new circles with peers who have shared interests in discovering who pays on time and who is delinquent;
- Pose questions about potential, or existing, trading partners; and
-Share knowledge with peers about trading partners you have had direct experience with.

“The B2B credit market needs to evolve to a P2P model for risk management and finally say goodbye to the 1970’s centralized information broker,” said Jim Swift, president and chief executive, in a statement. “In bringing the trusted tradition of ‘credit circles’ into the online world, Cortera is creating a new and more efficient paradigm for different companies, even competitors, to exchange vital payment information on their customers and suppliers.”

XOXO.