Data Methodology

Data Sources

PlainCredit draws from three official government sources:

• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's public dataset of consumer complaints filed against financial companies. Contains 14,088,398 complaints since 2011 in this extract, covering credit reporting, debt collection, mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and more.
• Federal Reserve G.19 Statistical Release: The Federal Reserve's consumer credit data, providing commercial bank credit card interest rate averages over time.
• FDIC Call Report Data (BankFind API): The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's quarterly Call Report filings, providing interest income and interest expense figures for the 25 largest US banks by asset size; powers the Bank Interest Rate Trends page.

Data Vintage

The CFPB updates its complaint database daily. This installed CFPB extract was built in March 2026 and is refreshed periodically rather than continuously. Federal Reserve G.19 interest-rate data is updated quarterly; the latest G.19 observation in this database is 2026-05-01 (20.94% all-accounts average). FDIC Call Report data is quarterly and this database currently carries Q4 2025 bank data. This extract holds 14,088,398 complaints. This volume enables meaningful statistical analysis of company response patterns and complaint trends, though early years have lower complaint volumes because the system was newer and less well-known to consumers.

Processing Pipeline

1. The full CFPB complaint dataset is downloaded from the CFPB public data API.
2. Complaints are aggregated by company, product category, state, and year.
3. Company response metrics are computed: timely response rate, consumer dispute rate, and complaint volume trend.
4. Companies with fewer than 10 complaints are excluded to avoid misleading profiles for very small companies or one-time complainants.
5. No individual complaint narratives are modified. Data is presented as submitted to the CFPB.
6. Federal Reserve G.19 rate time series are loaded separately and displayed as published.
7. FDIC Call Report data for the 25 largest US banks by asset size is loaded via the FDIC BankFind API, tracking quarterly interest income/expense ratios per bank.
8. All data is loaded into a structured SQLite database serving company profiles, state pages, bank rate trends, and trend charts.

Coverage

• Companies covered: 3,843 financial companies with 10+ complaints
• Total complaints: 14,088,398 since 2011 in this extract
• Products: Credit reporting, debt collection, mortgages, credit cards, student loans, personal loans, checking/savings
• Geographies: All 50 states plus D.C. and territories
• Banks tracked: Top 25 US banks by asset size (FDIC Call Report interest rate data)

Corpus Placement on Profiles

Company profiles state each company's rank among all tracked companies by total CFPB complaint volume. State profiles state each state's rank by complaints per 100,000 residents. Debt-collector profiles state each collector's rank among the debt-collector subset by debt-collection complaint volume (dc_complaints), using the same descending sort as the Collectors directory. These placements are computed from the live extract, not hand-edited tiers.

How the Source Agencies Collect Data

The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database collects complaints submitted by consumers through the CFPB website, phone, mail, or fax. Each complaint is forwarded to the named company for response. The CFPB publishes complaint records after the company responds or after 15 calendar days, including the product type, issue description, company response type, and whether the consumer disputed the response. Individual complaint narratives are published only with consumer consent.

The Federal Reserve G.19 Statistical Release on Consumer Credit is compiled from surveys of commercial banks, finance companies, credit unions, and other financial institutions. Interest rate data reflects the average rates charged on credit card accounts across surveyed institutions, published quarterly.

FDIC Call Reports (Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income) are quarterly financial statements that every FDIC-insured bank is legally required to file. The FDIC's BankFind API publishes each bank's balance sheet and income data, including total interest income and interest expense, from which the annualized interest-expense-to-average-assets ratio shown on this site is derived.

Data Accuracy Commitment

PlainCredit presents CFPB and Federal Reserve data without modification. Complaint counts, response metrics, and interest rate time series are computed directly from the published source data. We do not editorialize about company quality beyond what the data directly shows. If you find any data that appears incorrect, please contact us at hello@plaincredit.com and we will verify against the source records.

Limitations

• Complaint data reflects consumer-submitted reports. The CFPB does not independently verify all facts in individual complaints.
• Complaint volume depends partly on company size, large financial institutions naturally receive more complaints than small ones regardless of service quality.
• Companies with fewer than 10 complaints are excluded; very small or new companies may not appear.
• PlainCredit is not affiliated with the CFPB, the Federal Reserve, or any government agency.

Data licensing & revenue readiness

Readiness only, nothing below activates revenue without operator approval. This section documents what PlainCredit already exposes for passive citation and what would be required to monetize beyond display advertising.

Downloadable & embeddable today

• CSV extract: cfpb-complaint-state-statistics.csv - state-level complaint counts and company coverage (derived from CFPB public data).
• Dataset JSON-LD: on /statistics, /methodology, and identity pages, machine-readable citation metadata with isBasedOn pointing to CFPB.
• CiteThis blocks: APA/MLA strings on company, collector, state, rankings, research, guide, and statistics pages, attribution-ready, no API key required.
• RSS: site-wide /feed.xml plus per-company change feeds where a complete year-pair exists (see company pages).
• Not offered today: authenticated API, bulk company-level CSV export, or white-label embed widgets, would require [operator] product decision + terms update.

Attribution & license

Derived CSV uses CC0 where the extract is our aggregation; underlying CFPB records remain subject to U.S. Government Works terms. Third-party reuse must cite PlainCredit and the CFPB as the primary source and must not imply CFPB endorsement.

YMYL-safe affiliate placement rules (if operator activates)

PlainCredit is POSTURE-C (registry/technical, no credit advice). If affiliate units are ever enabled: no units adjacent to dispute/how-to guides, calculator outputs, or complaint counts framed as recommendations; labels must read “Advertisement” or “Sponsored”; density follows Module 36 ceilings shared with AdSense; no health/finance-advice adjacency on YMYL entity pages.

Alternative network paperwork readiness

Paperwork-only check (2026-09-02): Mediavine Journey requires ~1,000 real sessions/28d and original content, this portal is below that bar today (Bing-heavy traffic; see progress log). Ezoic/Monumetric-style networks similarly require sustained sessions and a privacy policy with ad-partner disclosure (already on /privacy). [operator] must choose network, sign agreement, and add the ad tag, not automated here.

Activation checklist (operator-gated)

1. [operator] Approve any paid data-licensing terms and pricing.
2. [operator] Publish updated /terms if API or bulk download is offered.
3. [operator] Enable affiliate or alternate ad network in the factory monetization pipeline.
4. [operator] AdSense resubmission remains frozen under POSTURE-C rotate until tier/promotion changes.