CFPB Publishes White Paper on Largest Consumer Reporting Agencies

CFPB Nonbank Supervision Consumer Reporting

On December 13, the CFPB issued a white paper on its review of 2011 data to determine how the three largest consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) manage consumer data and complaints. According to the CFPB press release, its review of the data revealed that more than half of the trade lines (the accounts in a consumer’s name reported by creditors) in the CRAs databases are supplied by the credit card industry, with 40 percent related to bank cards, such as general credit cards, and 18 percent from retail credit cards. Only seven percent comes from mortgage lenders or servicers, and only four percent comes from auto lenders. The CFPB also reported that (i) almost 40 percent of disputes have to do with collections, and debt in collection is five times more likely to be disputed than mortgage information, (ii) fewer than one in five people obtain copies of their credit report each year, (iii) most information contained in credit reports comes from a few large companies, and (iv) most complaints are forwarded to the furnishers that provided the original information, while the CRAs resolve an average of 15 percent of consumer disputed items internally. The report adds that certain documentation provided by consumers to support their cases may not be getting passed on to the data furnishers for them to properly investigate and report back to the CRA, but the report does not offer any policy prescriptions.