CFPB Office of Servicemember Affairs releases annual report on servicemembers’ financial needs

Federal Issues CFPB Servicemembers Agency Rule-Making & Guidance Consumer Complaints Consumer Finance SCRA Military Lending Act

On May 6, the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs (OSA) released its annual report, which provides an overview of OSA’s activities in fulfilling its statutory responsibilities for fiscal year 2020 and covers the period between January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020. The report also addresses concerns raised by military consumers based on approximately 40,000 complaints submitted by servicemembers, veterans, and their families (collectively “servicemembers”). Key takeaways from the report include the following:

• Financial help due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In response to Covid-19, the Bureau released an online resource “to highlight tools and information that consumers can use to protect themselves and manage their finances, including information on topics such as mortgage and housing assistance, student loans, and avoiding scams.” For servicemembers, the page connects to an OSA blog detailing resources that military personnel can use for immediate financial assistance and to sustain long-term financial well-being.
• Misadventures in Money Management (MiMM). MiMM serves as an online educational tool that provides young servicemembers with an important “baseline of financial education through the power of storytelling and gamification.”
• Consumer Financial Protection Week and Military Consumer Protection Month. OSA took part in a joint webinar with the CFPB’s Office of Older Americans and the Office of Community Affairs, which highlighted initiatives for vulnerable populations and emphasized the “importance of research in understanding the financial well-being of military consumers.” The webinar also unveiled the Bureau’s “first research report that studied how the credit records of young servicemembers coevolve with military service.”
• National Veterans and Military Families Month. During November 2020, OSA organized with other agencies and organizations to encourage the military community to leverage available resources to help improve their financial well-being. These initiatives included, among other things: (i) publishing OSA’s Debt and Delinquency after Military Service research report; (ii) participating in the Bureau’s Financial inTuition Repayment Podcast Series; and (iii) convening “a virtual military consumer webinar with partner agencies and organizations to discuss financial challenges facing servicemembers, veterans, and their families in the financial marketplace.”
• Education and empowerment. The Bureau also “deployed and amplif[ied] [its] financial education tools through partners, engaging servicemembers and military families at townhall-style listening sessions at military installations.”