Category Archives: Credit Reporting

Trump Administration Seems Likely to Weaken CRA Rules

by Jeff Sovern The WSJ has an interesting story out, Trump Administration Seeks to Change Rules on Bank Lending to the Poor, that reports: Community groups say the law should be expanded in order to bring opportunity to more low-income areas, while banks say they would do a better job of helping these people if the […]

Report that Mulvaney CFPB Stafffer Lobbied Against CFPB Discrimination Protections Before Joining CFPB

The report comes from Allied Progress. Excerpt: Just before the holiday break, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) “Acting Director” Mick Mulvaney announced that several of his senior staff from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would be taking on leadership roles at the CFPB. That list included his chief of staff Emma Doyle. What […]

Credit Bureau Industry Still Seeking Caps on Damages After Equifax Breach

by Jeff Sovern Much has been made of the fact that the day the Equifax breach became public, Congress held a hearing on bills that would have limited damages credit bureaus would have to pay for misconduct.  This past Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing titled Consumer Data Security and the Credit Bureaus […]

More Tough Talk in the Senate About the Equifax Data Breach; Will It Lead to Changes in the Law?

by Jeff Sovern Yesterday the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on consumer data security. The Hill covered it, in a report headlined Senators bear down on credit reporting industry over data security.  Here is an excerpt: “If they lose my data as Equifax did, or if someone submits to them data that is an error […]

The CFPB and Data Breaches, Plus WSJ: Equifax Hack Drives GOP Bill to Overhaul Credit Bureaus

by Jeff Sovern The WSJ article is here.  Excerpt: Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina introduced a bill to require the three major credit firms—Equifax, Experian PLC and TransUnion—to submit to regular federal cybersecurity reviews for the first time. All three companies also would have to phase out their use of Social Security numbers to verify consumers’ […]

Paper: Consumer Access to Credit Decreases in States Whose Senators Become Powerful

Pat Akey of the University of Toronto – Rotman School of Management, Rawley Heimer of the Boston College – Department of Finance, and Stefan Lewellen of the London Business School have written Politicizing Consumer Credit. Here's the abstract: Using proprietary credit bureau data, we find that consumers’ access to credit decreases by 4.5 percent–8 percent […]

LA Times’s David Lazarus: Despite Equifax hack, GOP lawmakers want to deregulate credit agencies

Here.  The whole column is definitely worth a read, but here's an excerpt: The FCRA Liability Harmonization Act is particularly noxious. Authored by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the bill would cap actual and statutory damages for class actions involving credit agencies at $500,000, and completely eliminate punitive damages. Loudermilk said Friday that his bill “is […]

Holding Equifax Accountable

Last week, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, WashU law professor Danielle D'Onfro proposed one way to hold Equifax accountable: "some old-fashioned judge-made doctrine." According to D'Onfro, "the data economy has outgrown our consumer protection regulations and we are on our own." She refers to a "Swiss cheese system of regulations that carry […]