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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

CFPB studies geographic patterns in credit invisibility

Consumer Finance CFPB Research Credit Reporting Agency

Consumer Finance

On September 19, the CFPB released a new Data Point report from the Office of Research titled, “The Geography of Credit Invisibility,” which examines geographic patterns in the prevalence of “credit invisible” consumers, a term for those who do not have a credit record maintained by a national credit reporting agency, or have a credit record that is deemed to have too little or too old of information to be treated as “scorable” by widely used credit scoring models. The report studies whether the geographic location of a consumer’s residence is correlated with the likelihood of remaining credit invisible and aims to “aid policymakers and advance the conversation around potential causes and solutions.” Among other things, the report found:

  • credit invisibility may be higher for geographic tracts near universities due to their concentration of adults under 25 who may not have established a credit record yet;
  • rural areas have the most credit invisibility per capita;
  • consumers are less likely to use a credit card as an entry product to establishing a credit record in rural and low-to-moderate income areas;
  • credit invisibility was more prevalent in areas with less internet access as many products are originated through online services; and
  • there is little relationship between distance to the nearest bank branch and the occurrence of credit invisibility.

The CFPB previously published two other Data Point reports on the subject: “Credit Invisibles” in 2015 and “Becoming Credit Visible” in 2017.