Most complaints the CFPB receives involve credit reports. And it’s no wonder, since an inaccurate report can derail access to housing, jobs, insurance, and credit.

Challenge

• The Supervision and Enforcement divisions needed a way to run error and consistency checks on credit reporting data (in the complex Metro 2 format).

• The old tool was clunky: it ran locally, often took weeks to process a single dataset, and lacked both a database and an interface. Results spilled across multiple Excel files, making it nearly unusable without deep technical skill and knowledge of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Action

• Led design end-to-end: kickoff, stakeholder workshops, requirements gathering, and iterative Figma prototyping.

• Planned and ran multiple rounds of user testing—from early concepts to filter refinements—even down to naming conventions.

• Rewrote and consolidated over 1600 error checks into 90 clear, human-readable syntax. Not only does this make maintenance significantly easier, but it makes it easier to identify patterns, too.

• Translated research into strategy providing recommendations, and interface design revisions.

Result

• Delivered a cloud-based, enterprise-wide tool with a persistent database, faster processing, higher security, and code quality standards. Early testing revealed data (often more than 200MM lines of account data) could be processed approximately 100x faster.

• Designed a user-centered interface that makes complex data approachable for non-experts. Sorting and filtering let users start analyzing problems in the tool, creating a more efficient workflow.

• On its first use, the tool uncovered a bank repeatedly reporting inaccurate negative data—leading to a $28M fine, with $7.8M returned directly to customers.