This study examines a proposed approach to credit reporting in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The relative narrow and targeted credit reporting response from the CARES Act appears to have been largely successful. However, there were calls by some members of Congress for an outright system-wide ban on credit reporting any adverse information, covering all consumers during (and for some period after) the COVID-19 crisis—a policy referred to as “suppression and deletion.” This research uses 5 million credit records from 2011 and 2017 to simulate the impact on credit scores and, more importantly, on consumer access to credit if the large-scale suppression and deletion policy were implemented.
Topics: Alternative Data Initiative, Credit Access, Disaster Recovery