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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

CFPB Releases “Core Outcomes” for Financial Empowerment Programs

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance Consumer Finance CFPB Consumer Education

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

On April 27, the CFPB announced in a blog post its release of a core set of financial outcomes designed to help human services organizations integrate financial empowerment and capability initiatives into their programs. Strategies include implementing financial education tools and financial counseling or coaching. In its April report, Tracking Success in Financial Capability and Empowerment Programs, the Bureau identified the following five core outcomes to help consumers improve their financial capabilities: (i) planning and goals; (ii) savings; (iii) bill payment; (iv) credit profile; and (v) financial well-being. According to the report, which assists the financial empowerment field in encouraging commonality in outcomes, core outcomes are designed to:

  • “help inform and guide service delivery organizations and those who design, fund, or evaluate service programs as they assess or document the value of integrating financial capability and empowerment strategies into the delivery of human services programs”;
  • “provide a suggested core set of common outcomes to measure for the financial empowerment field”;
  • “augment, not displace, current programmatic outcomes and accommodate a broad range of different program types”; and
  • “help provide consistency across programs by creating a common framework and language for demonstrating success for the provision of financial empowerment services as an element of other human services programs.”

According to the Bureau’s Office of Financial Empowerment, it began identifying common core outcomes with input from multiple financial empowerment practitioners and researchers to “improve the financial well-being of “lower-income and economically vulnerable consumers.”