Are you curious exactly what data the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection is collecting on a regular basis, be it from consumers, financial institutions, or anyone else? Are you curious what the BCFP does with that data and how it manages it?
While you likely answered no to those questions, it is incredibly interesting and comprehensive to see just how much information is flowing into the BCFP on a regular basis, whether to help with the bureau’s supervisory efforts or to help it better understand the markets it regulates. The agency issued a report yesterday, scintillatingly entitled: Sources and Uses of Data at the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, while also issuing a Request for Information, seeking input about its data collection efforts and how that data is governed once it is obtained by the BCFP.
Among the data “assets” managed by the BCFP are:
- An aggregate count of consumer debt collection lawsuits in various US counties, generated from public records available from state and county courts. The BCFP uses the data to monitor developments in the debt collection market.
- A database of Medicare pricing to study the relationship between medical costs and medical debt collections that appear on credit reports.
- A database from a financial institution that includes contact attempts and successes, and payments and debt curing for use in developing its debt collection rule.
- A database of transactions from a financial institution related to payments on debts.
- A database of interviews conducted with individuals in the collections industry.
Those are just a handful of the 188 different data “assets” owned by the BCFP.
