Research and reports

This report focuses on the consumer finances of rural Appalachians, and is the first in a series of reports focusing on the finances of rural consumers.

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

New analysis of student loan borrowers to identify groups of borrowers who may encounter difficulties when the CARES Act federal payment suspension ends.

This COVID-19 Special Issue Brief follows up on a May 2021 report that discussed the characteristics of mortgage borrowers, including demographics, during the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant number of homeowners have transitioned out of those forbearances over the last year due, in part, to improving economic conditions and the expiration of protections under these programs for many loans beginning in the Fall of 2021. Given these changes, our goal in this report is to better understand the characteristics of borrowers who remain in forbearance, as reported through January 2022.

New analysis in our Making Ends Meet series looks at financial security by examining how much consumers have in emergency savings and their financial profiles.

New analysis in our Making Ends Meet series shows consumers’ finances improved during the pandemic as pandemic policies protected consumers.

This report describes overdraft practices and outcomes at several thousand credit unions and banks in 2014 using data provided by core processors.

This report uses call report data to study the evolution of banks’ reliance on overdraft and non-sufficient fund fees since 2015.

This data point examines outcomes for subprime auto loans by lender type. It finds that borrowers with loans from some kinds of financial institutions pay higher interest rates, and experience vehicle repossessions more quickly after delinquency, than comparable borrowers with loans from other kinds of financial institutions.

A new analysis investigating the financial conditions of renters and homeowners before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Bureau Data Point article describes 2020 mortgage market activity and trends using data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

This report is an update to CFPB’s May 2020 report and December 2020 blog regarding the effects of COVID-19 on credit applications (or credit inquiries). It examines the different paths of recovery for types of credit applications.

A new analysis investigating how characteristics of mortgages, borrowers, and lenders vary across AAPI subgroups, based on the 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data.

A brief overview of the general lending patterns of HMDA reporters with the closed-end origination volumes around the new HMDA reporting threshold set by the 2020 HMDA Rule.

This report analyzes manufactured home loans, using two new fields in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data to understand the manufactured housing finance market and compare chattel loans and mortgages.

A new analysis in our Making Ends Meet survey series looks at how consumers use payday, auto title, and pawn loans.

This third COVID-19 Special Issue Brief describes the characteristics of mortgage borrowers, including demographics, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report focuses on borrowers with loans that are in forbearance or delinquent as reported through March 2021.

A new analysis examines the early impact of COVID-19 on consumers’ finances, finding that, in general, they were more able to stay on top of finances in June 2020 than June 2019.

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.

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

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

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 initial results from the Making Ends Meet survey, a nationally representative survey of adults with a credit record developed by the CFPB’s Office of Research.

2019 HMDA Mortgage Market Activity and Trends summarizes the historical data points in the 2019 HMDA data, as well as recent trends in mortgage and housing markets.