Research and reports

An analysis of the risks that nursing home residents and their caregivers face by assessing consumer complaints, nursing home admission contracts, and debt collection lawsuits.

Required financial assistance is a form of community benefit involving medical care that is provided for free, or at a discount, to patients who cannot afford to pay.

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.

The Office of Servicemember Affairs’ 2021 annual report on the top financial concerns facing servicemembers, veterans, and military families, based on the complaints they submitted to the CFPB.

This is the 26th edition of Supervisory Highlights. The findings included in this report cover examinations completed between July 2021 and December 2021 in the areas of auto servicing, consumer reporting, credit card account management, debt collection, deposits, mortgage origination, prepaid accounts, remittances, and student loan servicing.

The Bureau’s annual report to Congress summarizes the Bureau’s activities to administer the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) in 2021 as the primary federal regulator of the consumer debt collection industry. This report also includes activities conducted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2021 in relation to debt collection.

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.

This report outlines challenges faced by justice-involved people and their families in navigating their finances at each stage of the criminal justice system.

This is the 25th edition of Supervisory Highlights. The findings included in this report cover examinations completed between January 2021 and June 2021 in the areas of credit card account management, debt collection, deposits, fair lending, mortgage servicing, payday lending, prepaid accounts, and remittance transfers.

The 2021 Annual Report of the CFPB Education Loan Ombudsman reviews student loan complaints, the student loan and education ecosystems, the return to repayment, and servicing transfers.

Every two years, the CFPB reports on the state of the consumer credit card market. Our report for 2021 covers how consumers use cards, the price they pay for using them, the availability of credit cards, the practices used by credit card companies and debt collectors, and innovation in the market.

This is the 24th edition of Supervisory Highlights. The findings included in this report cover examinations in the areas of auto servicing, consumer reporting, debt collection, deposits, fair lending, mortgage origination, mortgage servicing, payday lending, private education loan origination and student loan servicing that were completed between January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

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 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.

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.

Quarterly consumer credit trends reports focus on a specific consumer financial product or issue using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of de-identified credit records maintained by a nationwide consumer reporting agency.

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).

Between May and September 2019, the CFPB conducted a large-scale online survey experiment designed to test several versions of disclosures to support understanding of time-barred debt and revival. The results of the survey experiment are summarized in this report.  

In September 2019, the CFPB engaged ICF International, Inc., to launch a large-scale online survey experiment designed to test several versions of disclosures to support understanding of time-barred debt and revival. ICF produced this report describing the methodology of this survey experiment, including sampling, response rates, and question development.

In this issue of Supervisory Highlights, we report examination findings in the areas of debt collection, mortgage servicing, payday lending, and student loan servicing that were completed between April 2019 and August 2019. 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.

In this special issue of Supervisory Highlights, we report examination findings in the areas of consumer reporting and furnishing of information to consumer reporting companies, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V. 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. 

The 2019 annual report of the CFPB Private Education Loan Ombudsman covers two years of data, discusses the importance of complaint analysis, and addresses unscrupulous student loan debt relief companies.    

In this issue of Supervisory Highlights, we report examination findings in the areas of automobile loan origination, credit card account management, debt collection, furnishing, and mortgage origination that were generally completed between December 2018 and March 2019 (unless otherwise stated). 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. 

Every two years, the CFPB reports on the state of the consumer credit card market. This is our report for 2019.

This report provides a brief overview of third-party debt collections tradelines. It compares tradelines from debt buyers to those from other debt collectors.