Backlit by an orange sunset, a man connects a car to a tow truck.

Do Recent Auto Loan Delinquency Rates Overstate Borrower Distress?

Headlines about record-high auto loan delinquencies paint a worrying picture of American consumers under increasing financial strain. But how much of that picture reflects a genuine increase in distress — and how much reflects how we measure it?

Featured Work

Consumer Credit

Working Paper

Building Credit Histories

WP 26-17 – If a credit history is necessary to get credit, and credit is needed to build a credit history, where does this leave new borrowers? This paper explores how lenders may look beyond repayment history to give new borrowers access to credit.

Consumer Credit

Working Paper

Does Experience Matter? Past Fraud Exposure, Data Compromises, and Credit Market Behavior

WP 26-10 – We study how past experiences with fraud affect individuals’ likelihood of taking precautionary action in credit markets when faced with a new shock that raises their fraud risks.

Consumer Credit

Working Paper

Model Risk Under CECL: A Consumer Finance Perspective

WP 26-09 – The author examines the challenges of economic forecasting and model misspecification errors confronted by financial institutions implementing the novel current expected credit loss (CECL) allowance methodology and its impact on model risk and bias in CECL projections.

Featured Data

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CFI COVID-19 Survey of Consumers

To gain insights into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial security in the U.S., the Consumer Finance Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conducted a series of national surveys of consumers beginning in April 2020 and concluding in April 2022.

Updated: 30 May ’23

Philadelphia’s History of Racially Restricted Housing

As part of the Philadelphia Fed’s efforts to understand how housing affects the economy in our District, our researchers are studying the links between past housing discrimination and present-day outcomes.

Updated: 20 Feb ’24