Now Beyond Talk, A CFPB Run Credit Reporting System Inches Toward Reality
Last week on the 24th, “Squad” members Ayanna Pressley, (D) MA, and Tlaib Rashida (D) MI introduced three of six bills intended to reform the nations credit reporting system. Included in these bills are the creation of a CFPB run Public Credit Registry and CFPB governance over all credit reporting models. Today, the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services will be conducting a hybrid hearing titled “A Biased, Broken System: Examining Proposals to Overhaul Credit Reporting to Achieve Equity” at 10:00 a.m. EDT.
Read The Bills Below
Only 5 days after the introduction of 6 new democrat sponsored congressional bills intending to alter credit reporting and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) on June 24, 2021, and the Congressional Financial Services committee is meeting on three of them with friendly guests. This seems to be well coordinated in advance and if you dig into the bills, it appears as though they’re trying to gain momentum on this quickly.
A panel of consumer protection industry experts will examine these three key pieces of legislation,
- The Protecting Your Credit Score Act of 2021 –
- The National Credit Reporting Agency Act – HR 4112, Stephen Lynch (D) MA
- The Comprehensive Credit Reporting Enhancement, Disclosure, Innovation, and Transparency Act of 2021. – HR 4115 proposed by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, (D) MA
According to its author, “The Protecting Your Credit Score Act of 2021” intends to amend the FCRA to ensure that consumer reporting agencies are providing fair and accurate information reporting in consumer reports, and for other purposes.
The National Credit Reporting Agency Act seeks to revised the FCRA to establish the Public Credit Registry as a federal consumer reporting agency, while the Comprehensive Credit Reporting Enhancement, Disclosure, Innovation, and Transparency Act of 2021 seeks to provide comprehensive reforms to consumer credit reporting laws.
Perhaps the most dramatic of these bills is HR 4112, which looks for the creation of a CFPB run credit reporting agency. This notion has already been supported by the White House in the past.
Enhanced injunctive relief against credit reporters and reporting agencies.
Excluding payment delinquencies on credit products that are determined by the Director to be predatory when computing credit scores.
Excluding adverse credit information older than 4 years.
Already on short notice, National Association of federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler called on the committee to reject efforts aimed at a blanket suppression of adverse credit reporting information that may lead to significant changes in how lenders use credit information and could disrupt consumer access to credit. NAFCU noted concerns with proposals under consideration by the committee that go “too far in suppressing adverse information and could diminish the accuracy of the credit reporting system.”
Please note: these bills are so new that they have yet to be submitted to a legislative analyst in the Congressional Research Service. Regardless, their early drafts have been located and can be read here.
Invited panelists to this mornings panel include persons from numerous consumer rights groups: Syed Ejaz, Financial Policy Analyst with Consumer Reports; Jeremie Greer, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Liberation in a Generation; Amy Traub, Associate Director of Policy and Research at Demos; Chi Chi Wu, Staff Attorney for the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC); and Dan Quan, Adjunct Scholar for Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives.
Facebook Comments