Research and reports

This report highlights the CFPB’s research on rural consumers as well as contextual information from other agencies on the consumer finance challenges faced by rural communities.

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.

The 2021 Financial Literacy Annual Report details the CFPB’s financial literacy strategy and activities to improve the financial literacy of consumers. Overall, this report describes the CFPB’s efforts in a broad range of financial literacy areas relevant to consumers’ financial lives.

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 Consumer Credit Trends report describes patterns in dispute flags that appear on consumers’ credit reports.

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.

2021 Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) report on college credit card agreements.

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.

This report explores the trends of commercial credit reporting on consumer credit.

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.

This report provides a foundational set of benchmarks of the financial well-being of Hispanics ages 18 and older in the United States in 2018, as measured by the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale, that practitioners and researchers can use in their work.

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.

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.

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.

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.