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New report explores the prevalence of actual payment information in consumer credit reporting

Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released the latest quarterly consumer credit trends report exploring the prevalence of actual payment information in consumer credit reporting. Financial institutions’ decisions regarding what data are sent (or “furnished”) to consumer reporting agencies carry important implications for which factors lenders use to evaluate consumers. For consumers seeking credit, actual payment information may play a role in determining the credit products they are marketed and the terms of credit they receive.

This is part of a series of reports of consumer credit trends produced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau using a longitudinal, nationally-representative sample of approximately five million de-identified credit records maintained by one of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies.

Key findings include:

  • Across the three most common installment loan types (auto loans, student loans, and mortgages), shares of credit accounts with actual payment amount information furnished have generally trended upward, and by March 2020, contained actual payment information in more than 90 percent of credit accounts. However, shares of revolving and credit card accounts with actual payment information furnished significantly declined over the same time period. The share of credit card accounts containing actual payment data peaked in the fourth quarter of 2013 at 88 percent and has since declined by more than half to 40 percent. Compared to actual payment, other data variables in a consumer’s consumer report, such as balance amount and credit limit, are consistently furnished across loan types.
  • Furnishing actual payment information appears to be an either/or proposition for credit card issuers. Issuers either furnish actual payment information for nearly all accounts or not at all.
  • In 2013, up to 70 percent of the largest credit card issuers furnished actual payment data for nearly all accounts. As of 2020, only about half of issuers with recent payments furnish these data.

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