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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

CFPB will continue to publish consumer complaint data

Federal Issues CFPB Consumer Complaints RFI

Federal Issues

On September 18, the CFPB announced changes to its Consumer Complaint Database (CCDB), stating that it would continue the publication of consumer complaints, data fields, and narrative descriptions. As previously covered by InfoBytes, in March 2018, the Bureau issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking feedback on potential changes that could be implemented to the Bureau’s public reporting of consumer complaint information, including the data fields provided in the CCDB. In June 2018, then-acting Director, Mick Mulvaney, noted the Bureau was in the process of reviewing whether or not the CCDB would continue to be publicly available (covered by InfoBytes here.) The Bureau noted that it received nearly 26,000 comments from a wide array of stakeholders in response to the RFI and after considering all input, the decision was made to continue the “publication of complaints with enhanced data and context that will benefit consumers and users of the database while addressing many of the concerns raised.” Specifically, the CCDB will now (i) more prominently acknowledge that the CCDB is not a statistical sample of consumers’ experiences in the marketplace; (ii) highlight the availability of answers to common financial questions to help inform consumers before they submit a complaint; and (iii) highlight consumers’ ability to contact the financial institution directly. Additionally, in the coming months the Bureau plans to, among other things, explore the expansion of a company’s ability to respond publicly to individual complaints in the database and look for additional ways to put complaint data in context, such as incorporating product or service market share and company size.