Credit reporting

Fifteen million Americans who owe a combined $49 billion in medical debt would benefit from a proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to scrub medical debts from credit reports and ban their use in underwriting decisions.

At an industry conference, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said he was open to suggestions on how to increase choice and competition to benefit mortgage lenders and borrowers.

Industry executives coming off a tough year are wondering what the transition will cost and how many borrowers it'll bring in.

Credit bureaus should know better than to include "impossible" data, such as someone defaulting on a loan before they were born, says Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra.

In a letter to the agency’s new director, top Senate Democrats recommended policy steps intended to limit mistakes in consumers’ credit files that they said “can ruin lives.”

Kikoff, whose investors include Golden State Warriors' star Stephen Curry, provides applicants with a no-fee $500 revolving line of credit they can use to purchase personal finance books and courses from its online store. The company then reports this payment activity to some credit bureaus.

Democrats are pushing for a public-sector alternative to the three main credit bureaus, but Republicans argue that the government is ill-equipped to safely handle consumer data and produce accurate reports.

Some say Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are too slow to investigate grievances, prompting more complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the big three say other forces are at work.

Complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau jumped 54% to 542,300 in 2020. Concerns about credit reports have long outnumbered those in other categories and jumped significantly as a share of the total from 2019.

Loans with coronavirus-related forbearance have to be reported as current to the credit bureaus but there’s a ripple effect from them that has implications for credit reports and underwriting.