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### CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT SUBMISSION

INFORMATION COLLECTION S REQUEST

SUPPORTING STATEMENT PART A

CONSUMER AND COLLEGE CREDIT CARD AGREEMENT

(OMB CONTROL NUMBER: 3170

- XXXX)

OMB TERMS OF CLEARANCE: Not applicable. This is a request for a new OMB control

number.

ABSTRACT:

Sections 204 and 305 of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 ( CARD Act) and 12 C.F.R. §§ 226.57(d) and 226.58 require car d issuers to submit to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB):

 a greements between the issuer and a consumer under a credit card account for an open

- end consumer credit plan ; and

 a ny college credit card agreements to which the issuer is a party and certain additional information regarding those agreements.

The data collections enable the CFPB to provide consumers with a centralized depository for consumer and college credit card agreements. It also present s information to the publi c regarding t he arrangements between financial institutions and institutions of higher education.



### PART A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Circumstances Necessitating the Data Collection

P ursuant to the Dodd

- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd

- Frank Act”), Section 502(a) of the CARD Act r equires periodic reviews of the consumer c redit card market, within the limits of the Bureau’s existing resources available for r eporting purposes. As enacted in 2009, the CARD

Act directed that the Fede ral Reserve Board (FRB) conduct this review

. The CFPB and the FRB concluded in May 2012 that responsibility for this review will be transferred to the CFPB, along with the general transfer of rulemaking authority for the Truth in Lending Act.

As set fort h in the statute, these collections seek to examine developments in the consumer credit card marketplace, including:

 ef fectiveness of disclosure of terms, fees, and other expenses of credit card plans;

 a dequacy of protections against unfair or deceptive acts or practices relating to credit card plans

.

Consumer Credit Card Agreement Quarterly SubmissionPage 2 of 6

On July 21, 2011, the CFPB assumed responsibility under the CARD Act for quarterly collecting credit card agreements in a publicly available database. P ursuant to 12 CFR 1026.58; 15 USC 1632(d)(2)

- (3); collection is mandated for all issuers (subject to de minimus exceptions), and scope of mandate may require submission of multiple different agreements for each issuer

.

College Credit Card Agreement Annual Submission

This collection is made pursuant to the CARD Act requirement: 12 C.F.R. § 1026.57(d) ; 15 U.S.C. § 1637(r); 76 FR 79768 (Dec. 22, 2011).

Every year, the CARD Act requires the CFPB to collect the agreements in place between credit card

issuers and institutions of higher education, as well as summary data about the credit cards offered pursuant to these agreements.

The CARD Act requires the CFPB to submit to Congress, and to make available to the public, an annual report that lists information submitted to the Bureau concerning agreements between credit card issuers and institutions of higher education or certain affiliated organizations. 1 Affiliated organizations include fraternities, sororities, alumni associations, or foundations affiliated with or related to an institution of higher education. CFPB provides this centralized depository on its website and also publish es an annual report each year based upon the submitted data.

Similarly to the quarterly credit card agreement submission, th is role was also inherited from the Federal

Reserve Board.

The annual submission of college credit card agreements has previously approved by the Office of Management and Budget, and bears OMB approval number 7100

- 0199.



### 2. Use of the Information

Consumer Credit Card Agreement Quarterly Submission

Every quarter, the CARD Act requires the CFPB to collect and post to CFPB’s website credit card agreements from issuers with over 10,000 accounts. Financial institutions must submit consumer credit

card agreements quarterly by the first business day on or after January 31, April 30, July 31, and October 31 of each year , as described in 12 C.F.R. § 226.58.

Consumer agreement submissions generally must reflect the consumer agreements an issuer offered to t he public as of the last business day of the preceding calendar quarter. For example, the su bmission due on January 31, 2014 (the first business day on or after January 31, 201 4 ) must reflect the consumer

a greements your institution offered to the public as of December 31, 2013 (the last business day of the

f ourth calendar quarter).

The CFPB is required by law to make all such agreements “easily accessible and retrievable

. ” T hey are posted on CFPB’s site: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/credit

- cards/agreements/ . The agreements can

1 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) submits this report in accordance with Section 305 of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the “ CARD Act”), Pub. L. No. 111

– 24, § 305(a), 123 Stat. 1734 , 1749

- 50 (2009).Page 3 of 6

be filtered by issuer and the text is fully searchable . This facilitates consumers’ ability to find their cr edit card agreement and compare it to others.

College Credit Card Agreement Annual Submission

Every year, the CARD Act requires the CFPB to collect the agreements in place between credit card issuers and institutions of higher education, as well as summary data about the credit cards offered pursuant to these agreements.

College agreements must be submitted annually by the first business day on or after March 31 of each

year , as described in 12 C.F.R. § 226.57(d). For example, if an institution was a party to a college credit card agreement in effect at any time during calendar year 2013

, the agreement and i nformation about that

agreement must be sent to the CFPB after December 31, 201 3

, and no later than March 31, 2014

.

The a greements between the financial institution and the institution of higher education and information about those agreements are considered nonconfidential. The CFPB will make these agreements and the related information available to the public as part of an annual report.

Agree ments between a financial institution and an institution of higher education and information about those agreements are considered nonconfidential because:

 Section 304 of the Credit CARD Act and 12 C.F.R. § 226.57(b) require institutions of higher

educatio n to dis close these agreements publicly; and

 Section 305 of the Credit CARD Act requires the Board to submit to Congress and make available to the public an annual report that lists certain information about each agreement
submitted.

This information inclu des:

 the total amount of payments by your institution during the year;

 the specific terms of the agreement under which payments are calculated ;

 the number of accounts opened during the year;

 the total number of accounts that were open at the end of the ye ar; and

 a list of agreements terminated during the calendar year including the name, type, and location of the institution of higher education.



### This data collection is intended to bring greater transparency to the college and university credit

card market. The CARD Act prohibits credit card issuers from extending credit without assessing the consumers’ ability to pay , specifically persons under the age of 21

. Th is col lection

is vital to the ongoing regulatory surveillance of th is potentially risky market segment . The

collection also provides consumers

, including college students

, clear and comparable information regarding their credit cards.

T he c ollege credit card data is posted at https://data.consumerfinance.gov/Government/College

- Credit

Card

- Agreements/r963

- hvsf

.



### 3. Use of Information Techno logy

The CFPB changed the submission method from faxing PDF/handwritten forms to emailing Excel forms electronically in July 2012. This change was non

- materialand ha s made the form submission efficient and timely and reduced logistical burden.Page 4 of 6



### 4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This data is not otherwise available from any other source.



### 5. Efforts to Minimize Burdens on Small Entities

None of the entities affected by this data collection can be classified as small entities.



### 6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection and Obstacles to Burden Reduction

To meet statutory requirements, the CFPB is required to collect these data quarterly and annually and make the information available to the Congress and the general public. Without CFPB’s quarte rly collection of agreements, consumers may not have access to the latest and up

- to

- date agreement disclosure. Also, w ithout this data the public would be hindered in their ability to comparison shop for

credit cards and competition would thereby be harme d. Further, the 

### Card Act requires CFPB to submit to Congress and make available to the public an annual report that lists certain information regarding the arrangements between credit card issuers and institutions of higher education.

7. Circumstances Requiring Special Information Collection

The Bureau notes that we request that entities respond within 10 business days so that we can provide this information in its entirety to general public in a timely fashion. However we appreciate that this is not always possible for all institutions, and n ote that, comporting with OMB rules regarding information collections, an entity has up to 30 days to make the required response. There are no special circumstances requiring specia l information collections. These collections of information is otherwise consistent with the applicable guidelines contained in 5 CFR 1320.5(d) (2).



### 8. Consultation Outside the Agency

In accordanc e with 5 CFR 1320.8(d)(1), the Bureau has published a notice Federal Register allowing the public 60 days to comment on this collection of information

. Further and in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.5(a)(1)(iv), the Bure au will publish a notice in the Federal Register allowing the public 30 days to

comment on the submission of this information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget.



### 9. Payments or Gifts to Respondents

None.



### 10. Assurances of Confidentiality

The information collected will be made publicly available and no assurances of confidentiality are given to respondents. No personally identifying information is collected, and the Bureau will treat all

information received consistent with its confidentia lity regulations at 12 C F R Part 1070 .20 et seq.



### 11. Justification for Sensitive QuestionsPage 5 of 6

This information collection does not include questions of a sensitive nature.



### 12. Estimated Burden of Information Collection

Information Collection Requirement No. of Respondents Frequency Number of

Annual Respo n es Average

Response Time (hours) Annual Burden

Hours

Quarterly Credit Card Agreement Submission 400 4 1,600 .25 400

Annual College Credit Card Agreement

Submission 30 1 30 1 30

Totals: 430 ////////////// 1,630 //////////////////// 430

The proposed annual burden for the quarterly credit card agreement submission would be 400 hours. The CFPB is required to collect the agreements from at least 350 credit card issuers; typically the number of respondents fluctuates around 400 . Since these agreements collected are readily available by the card issuers (and usually already publicly discl osed), this requirement imposes little burden.

Associated Labor Costs: Quarterly agreement credit card agreement submission

We estimate the labor costs to submit the credit card agreements quarterly to be $ 20,840 based on the following formula: percentage of staff time, multiplied by annual burden hour s, multiplied by hourly rate (30 % Administra tive Services Manager @ $ 43 , 70 % Operations Manager @ $5 6

, ). Hourly rate estimates for each occupational group are averages using data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment and Wages , May 2013, http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm . O ccupations are defined using the BLS Occupational Classification System, http://www.bls.gov/soc/

.



### The proposed annual burden for the annual college c redit card agreement submission would be

30 hours. T ypically the number of respondents fluctuat es around 30 . Since these agreements collected are readily available by the card issuers (and usually alread y publicly disclosed), this requirement imposes

little burden.

Annual Credit Card Agreement submission

We estimate the labor costs to submit the annual college credit card agreement to be $ 1, 605 based on the following formula: percentage of staff time, multiplied by annual burden hours, multiplied by hourly rate (30% Administrative Services Manager @ $ 43 , 50 % Operations Manager @ $5 6

, and 20 % Legal Counsel @ $63 ). Hourly rate estimates for each occupational group are averages using data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment and Wages , May 2013, http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm . O ccupations are defined using the BLS Occupational Classification System, http://www.bls.gov/soc/

.



### 13. Estimated Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents or Recordkeepers

Since this data is already collected by the respondent in their ordinary course of business, reporting it onPage 6 of 6

this form imposes no significant additional costs on them



### .

14. Estimated Cost to the Federal Government

None. The CFPB incurs no unique costs as a result of this data collection.



### 15. Program Changes or Adjustments

Since this is a request for a new OMB co ntrol number, all the burden associated with this collection of

information is considered to be a program change

. Further, theses statutorily required collections have been conducted by the Bureau without a currently valid OMB control number. Therefore, the program change will be classified as “ Change due to PRA Violation .”



### 16. Plans for Tabulation, Statistical Analysis, and Publication

Individual respondent data are collected and then published on CFPB’s public web site. There is no complex analytical techniques being used. The final presentation of the information does include basic search, filter and sort functionalities.



### 17. Display of Expiration Date

The Bureau plans to display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection on all

instruments.



### 18. Exceptions to the Certification Requirement

T he Bureau certifies that this collection of information is consistent with the requirements of 5 CFR 1320.9, and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3) and is not seeking an exemption to these certification requirements.