Credit reporting

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is among several agencies that "continue to investigate events related to" last year's Equifax brief, the credit reporting firm said in a securities filing.

It is unclear whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is abandoning its supervisory oversight of Equifax or just taking a back seat to the Federal Trade Commission as the latter investigates the credit bureau.

The credit bureau enraged many with its response to a massive data breach this fall, but closing the company down would ultimately harm consumers.

Consumer credit bureau and data aggregator Experian will gain a foothold in the U.K. mortgage market by acquiring a minority stake in mortgage brokerage London & Country Mortgages Limited.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking more information about consumers' experience with free access to credit scores.

Calls for less reliance on credit bureaus and Social Security numbers for verification are leading many to envision a future of identity on a distributed ledger.

Cybersecurity and breach notification procedures have caught the most public attention following the massive hack at Equifax, but lawmakers are also interested in the accuracy of credit reports.

Congress may soon try to limit the personal identifiable information that companies and the government can collect on consumers based on their reaction to the massive data breach at Equifax.

Equifax observed an increasingly well-worn ritual of scandal-ridden firms by jettisoning CEO Richard Smith: apologize, promise to do better in the future, and sacrifice your top executive in the hopes it will ward off action by Congress and regulators.

The Equifax breach has millions of Americans now thinking about freezing their credit to guard against identity theft. But those who act could be cutting themselves off from the nation's vast credit economy.