Research and reports

This report provides detailed information about the diversity and inclusion work of Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection from Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 30, 2020.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began consumer response operations on July 21, 2011, and became the first federal agency solely focused on consumer financial protection. The Bureau’s Consumer Response team hears directly from consumers about the challenges they face in the marketplace, brings their concerns to the attention of financial institutions, and assists in addressing their complaints.

The Bureau is pleased to submit to Congress its annual report summarizing the Bureau’s activities along with those of the Federal Trade Commission to administer the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).

This report summarizes some of the relevant data and research on the impact of the pandemic on the rental and mortgage market, and particularly its impact on low income and minority households. 11 million renter and homeowner households were significantly overdue on their regular housing payments as of December 2020, placing them at heightened risk of losing their homes to foreclosure or eviction over the coming months. Black and Hispanic households were more than twice as likely to report being behind on their payments than white households.

Nearly 65 percent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employee population responded to the annual employee survey conducted between October 5 and October 30, 2020.

On January 3, 2019, the Good Accounting Obligation in Government Act (GAO-IG Act) was enacted as Public Law number 115-414. The GAO-IG Act requires agencies to annually submit a report to Congress on the status of open public audit recommendations. This report is published by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection in compliance with that law.

The Office of Research released a research brief summarizing the results of an online experiment exploring how the amount of available savings may influence decisions about using savings to pay down credit card debt.

Fall 2020 Semi-Annual Report of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

This is a special edition of Supervisory Highlights that details the Bureau’s Prioritized Assessment (PA) work. PA observations are described in the areas of mortgage, auto and student loan servicing, credit card account management, consumer reporting-furnishing, debt collection, deposits, prepaid cards, and small business lending.

The report does not impose any new or different legal requirements, and all observations described in the report are based only on those specific facts and circumstances noted during those PAs.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law released a report with recommendations on how to improve consumer protection in the financial marketplace.

The 2020 Financial Literacy Annual Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau details the Bureau’s financial literacy activities and strategy to improve the financial literacy of consumers. Overall, this report describes the Bureau’s efforts in a broad range of financial literacy areas relevant to consumers’ financial lives.

This report provides an overview of the Bureau’s publicly available website and digital services, in accordance with the reporting requirements of the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act or the 21st Century IDEA (Public Law No. 115-336).

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

This report is a follow-on study to our Financially Fit research report. Rather than focus on the credit histories of young servicemembers, this study takes a closer look at the credit records of young veterans in the first year after separation from the military.

2020 Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB/BCFP) report on college credit card agreements.

Children’s Savings Account (CSA) programs provide children and families with long-term savings or investment accounts and incentives to save for postsecondary education.

This Data Point provides new information about the types of changes that occur during the mortgage origination process.

This report describes the TRID Rule, the market, and the Bureau’s findings on the Rule’s effectiveness in meeting factors outlined in Dodd-Frank.

The Office of Research released a research brief that explores consumers’ perceived financial preparedness, saving habits, and financial security.

In this edition of Supervisory Highlights, we report examination findings in the areas of consumer reporting, debt collection, deposits, fair lending, mortgage servicing and payday lending. The report does not impose any new or different legal requirements, and all violations described in the report are based only on those specific facts and circumstances noted during those examinations.

This is the seventh report on the Bureau’s compliance with the Plain Language Act of 2010.

This second COVID-19 Special Issue Brief describes trends in delinquency rates, payment assistance, credit access, and account balance measures with a focus on the period since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The goal of this article is to help the public become more familiar with the new and revised data points in the 2019 HMDA data and to provide some initial observations about the nation’s mortgage market in 2019 using those new and revised data points. As in last year’s article, the focus of this article is on cross-sectional analyses, i.e. using the data contained in one year’s loan application registrar (LAR) to explore various patterns and relationships between different data fields to provide some initial observations.

This report summarizes the Bureau’s February 26, 2020, symposium on Consumer Access to Financial Records and Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act.

The Office of Research released a report that synthesizes the rigorous research of programs and strategies aiming to help consumers achieve greater liquid savings.