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July 17, 2012 – A final rule that subjects consumer reporting agencies with annual receipts exceeding $7 million to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau supervision was issued Monday and takes effect Sept. 30.

The CFPB final rule covers 30 of an estimated 400 consumer reporting agencies, the bureau said, but captures about 94 percent of the market's annual receipts.

The rule was proposed under the CFPB's Dodd-Frank Act authority to supervise "larger market participants" that provide consumer financial services but are non-federally supervised.

"The CFPB's approach to supervising credit reporting will be just like its approach to supervising banks and other nonbanks already subject to CFPB supervision," the bureau said in a statement. "The companies will be subject to review of compliance systems and procedures, on-site examinations, discussions with relevant personnel, and they will be required to produce relevant reports.

Last summer, the CFPB sought input on how it should determine what is a "larger market participant." NAFCU urged the CFPB to look at the full range of service providers and to define "larger" participants using criteria such as size, market share and number of specific product markets serviced by such entities. It also urged against setting a single threshold across all markets in determining what is a larger market participant.

The CFPB appears to be taking that approach so far; for example, it has proposed to include debt collection firms with more than $10 million in annual receipts. However, NAFCU has recommended lowering the threshold proposed for supervised debt collectors given that median annual receipts total $500,000.

In addition to its final rule, the CFPB published a fact sheet on the credit reporting market and a consumer advisory about credit reports. Consumers can also ask questions about credit reports via AskCFPB.