On July 11, the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing entitled “Who’s Keeping Score? Holding Credit Bureaus Accountable and Repairing a Broken System.” The hearing involved a series of bills that would potentially reform the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The proposed bills, which were advanced on a party-line vote (all Democrats voting in favor), included:
- The Restricting Use of Credit Checks for Employment Decisions Act, which would ban the use of consumer report information for most employment decisions.
- The Free Credit Scores for Consumers Act of 2019, which would require consumer reporting agencies to disclose consumer credit scores annually upon request. Further, any CRA would be required to disclose to consumers their full file and credit score when that consumer obtains a fraud alert or security freeze, or has disputed information on the credit report.
- The Restoring Unfairly Impaired Credit and Protecting Consumers Act, which would require CRAs to remove adverse information from consumer reports after four years – rather than the current seven.
- The Improving Credit Reporting for All Consumers Act, which includes providing consumers the right to appeal disputes.
The bills will now be considered by the full U.S. House of Representatives, then the Senate, where success is unlikely.
Troutman Sanders will continue to monitor these developments and provide updates as they are available.