CFPB issues semi-annual report to Congress

It’s officially spooky season!  It gets dark earlier in the day, the moon was full last night, scary movies are all the rage, and all sorts of creepy crawly costumed creatures will soon be converging on our neighborhoods, asking for treats.

On October 8, 2021, the CFPB got in on the pre-Halloween fun by publishing its spring 2021 Semi-Annual Report to Congress.  The CFPB is a very active agency, so its report clocks in at just over 100 pages, and is chock-full of the bureau’s activities during the reporting period (January – June 2021), under Acting Director Uejio.  The report summarizes the bureau’s activities across many topics and initiatives, including COVID-19 effects, significant rules and orders adopted and planned for the upcoming period, complaint data analysis, supervisory and enforcement actions, fair lending efforts, and more.

Section 1.1 of the report kicks off with a piece on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer credit, and notes that the bureau has published multiple blogs on the subject.  A December 2020 blog concluded that consumer credit markets at that time were “far from normal” based on the low number of applications and reported credit pulls.  The report also calls out another bureau publication from March 2021, entitled “Housing Insecurities and the COVID-19 Pandemic.”  This publication addressed data and research around the pandemic’s impact on the rental and mortgage markets, with a focus on the impact to low income and minority households, and found that “2.1 million families were behind at least three months on mortgage payments, while 8.8 million were behind on rent.”

 

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