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Reports

We study how consumers interact with financial products and services to help identify potential problems in the marketplace and achieve better outcomes for all. Review our reports and analyses to help inform your decisions, policies, and practices. And, see reports that we periodically prepare about the CFPB.

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Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Chatbots in consumer finance

Providing support to customers is the foundation of relationship banking. To reduce costs, financial institutions are integrating advanced technologies, such as large language models (“LLMs”) and those marketed as “artificial intelligence,” to deploy customer service chatbot. A poorly designed chatbot can lead to customer frustration, reduced trust, and even violations under the law.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Medical Credit Cards and Financing Plans

This report highlights some of the risks to consumers of using financing products such as medical credit cards and installment loans to pay for medical procedures and services. The report provides a background on these products, highlights potential lack of transparency and financial risks to consumers, analyzes data on deferred interest healthcare credit cards, and offers a summary of the terms for a sample of financing products.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Supplemental estimation methodology for institutional coverage and market-level cost estimates in the small business lending rulemaking

This report describes the CFPB’s methodology for estimating how many banks will be required to report under the small business lending rule and for producing market-level estimates of associated costs.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Market Snapshot: Trends in Third-Party Debt Collections Tradelines Reporting

This report provides an overview of the trends in third-party debt collections tradelines on consumer credit reports from 2018 to 2022. A collections tradeline is an item on a consumer’s credit report. It includes information about an individual’s allegedly unpaid bills. Collections tradelines, which are considered negative, generally may appear on a consumer report for up to seven years.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Mortgage Servicing COVID-19 Pandemic Response Metrics: New Observations from Data Reported by Sixteen Servicers for May-December 2021

This report presents the CFPB’s observations of data provided by sixteen mortgage servicers for the period May-December 2021 regarding key servicing metrics and COVID-19 pandemic response.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Consumer Use of State Payday Loan Extended Payment Plans

This report examines state payday loan extended payment plans, an intervention allowing consumers to repay their payday loans in no-cost installments. It finds that despite the prevalence of state laws providing for these plans, rollover and default rates consistently exceed extended payment plan usage rates.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Medical debt burden in the United States

This report summarizes key areas of concern in medical debt collections and reporting. The report begins with a section describing the medical debt landscape. It then discusses the negative consequences of medical debt for consumers. Next, it outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical debt. The report concludes with a brief discussion of federal and state regulatory developments.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Supplemental estimation methodology for institutional coverage and market-level cost estimates in the small business lending data collection notice of proposed rulemaking

This report describes the Bureau’s methodology for estimating how many banks would be required to report under the proposed rule implementing section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act and for producing market-level estimates of associated costs.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Mortgage Servicing COVID-19 Pandemic Response Metrics: Observations from Data Reported by Sixteen Servicers

This report presents the CFPB’s observations of data provided by sixteen large mortgage servicers regarding COVID-19 pandemic response, including key metrics such as call center data; forbearance requests, denials, and exits; delinquency; and borrower profiles.

Category: Industry and markets |
Published

Housing insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic

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.