FR3033s_20210929_omb_B

Supporting Statement Part B for the
Survey of Finance Companies
(FR 3033s; OMB No. 7100-0277)
Summary
For all information collections that involve surveys or require a statistical methodology,
the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) is required to provide a complete
justification and explanation of the use of such a methodology. For collections that employ
surveys without such a methodology, the Board should be prepared to justify its decision not to
use statistical methods in any case where such methods might reduce burden or improve
accuracy of results.
Background
Since June 1955, the Board has surveyed the finance companies at five-year intervals. In
1980, the survey was split into an extremely brief screening survey to determine eligibility and a
longer survey for detailed assets and liabilities information from confirmed finance companies.
The FR 3033p is the first stage screening survey to all companies that meet criteria developed to
identify the potential universe of domestic finance companies. An accurate census is required to
form a representative sample of finance companies, to which the more detailed FR 3033s would
be sent. Together they will help the Federal Reserve to benchmark a monthly data series on
major assets and liabilities of finance companies (FR 2248; OMB No. 7100-0005) which forms
the foundation for two monthly statistical releases (G.19 and G.20) and one quarterly release
(Z.1). Information from the quinquennial survey also provides the Board with an opportunity to
learn about an important, and understudied, part of the financial system.
Universe and Respondent Selection
The Board proposes to send the survey form to up to 3,000 companies which, based on
our experience with 2015 survey, may be sufficient. In 2015, the Board sent out approximately
2,300 surveys via mail. Excluding those forms that were returned by the post office as
undeliverable, the overall response rate was 40.8 percent. The response rate for the upcoming
information collection is estimated to be around 40 percent. Using this approximate number of
2,300 with our anticipated response rate of around 40 percent, the Board estimates 900
respondents for the FR 3033s.
Procedures for Collecting Information
Given the five-year frequency for the FR 3033s and the experiences from 2010 and 2015,
the Board believes a cap of 3,000 eligible finance companies to be surveyed is appropriate and
necessary.

Methods to Maximize Response
To improve the response rate for the survey, the Board is planning to conduct survey
mailings with a pre-survey notification letter, initial mailing, a second-wave mailing of the entire
survey package to nonrespondents 15 days after the previous mailing, and a postcard reminder
sent to nonrespondents approximately 10 days after each wave of mailing. In addition, a web based survey will also be available to respondents and provide an additional mode of response.
To cope with the expected level of nonresponse to the survey, the Board intends to follow
up with all the nonrespondents with phone calls or emails. The follow-up study would include
questions related to, but not necessarily identical to, the survey questions.
Testing of Procedures
None.

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