FR2248_20220325_omb

Supporting Statement for the
Domestic Finance Company Report of Consolidated Assets and Liabilities
(FR 2248; OMB No. 7100-0005)
Summary
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), under authority
delegated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has extended for three years,
without revision, the Domestic Finance Company Report of Consolidated Assets and Liabilities
(FR 2248; OMB No. 7100-0005). The FR 2248 is collected monthly as of the last calendar day
of the month from a stratified sample 1 of finance companies. 2 Each monthly report collects
balance sheet data on major categories of consumer and business credit receivables and on major
short-term liabilities. For quarter-end months (March, June, September, and December),
additional asset and liability items are collected to provide a full balance sheet. A supplemental
section collects data on securitized assets. Board staff may ask either quantitative or qualitative
questions through the use of a special addendum section no more than twice per year. 3 The data
are used to construct universe estimates of finance company holdings, which are published in the
monthly statistical releases Finance Companies (G.20) and Consumer Credit (G.19), and in the
quarterly statistical release Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1).4
The estimated total annual burden for the FR 2248 is 750 hours. The form and
instructions are available on the Board’s public website at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/reportforms/default.aspx.
Background and Justification
The Board has collected consumer credit data from finance companies on a regular basis
since the mid-1940s. In 1955, the Federal Reserve conducted its first universe survey of finance
companies, including business finance companies. Using data from that first universe survey, the
1

Potential universe of respondents is identified by the quinquennial Census of Finance Companies and Other
Lenders (FR 3033p) and Survey of Finance Companies (FR 3033s) (OMB No.7100-0277), as explained in the
Background and Justification section.
2
Finance companies include companies in which 50 percent or more of assets are held in any of the following types
of loan or lease assets: (1) liens on real estate, defined as outstanding balances on loans or leases, for any purpose,
secured by liens on real estate and (2) loans and leases not secured by real estate, such as business loans and leases,
defined as outstanding balances on loans and on leases for commercial and industrial purposes to sole
proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and other business enterprises; or consumer loans and leases, defined as
outstanding balances on loans and on leases for household, family, and other personal expenditures.
3
Certain criteria apply to information collections conducted via the Board’s ad hoc clearance process. Such
information collections shall (1) be vetted by the Board’s clearance officer, as well as the Division direc tor
responsible for the information collection, (2) display the OMB control number, (3) inform respondents that the
information collection has been approved, (4) be used only in such cases where response is voluntary, (5) not be
used to substantially inform regulatory actions or policy decisions, (6) be conducted only and exactly as described in
the OMB submission, (7) involve only noncontroversial subject matter that will not raise concerns for other Federal
agencies, (8) include a detailed justification of the effective and efficient statistical survey methodology (if
applicable), and (9) collect personally identifiable information (PII) only to the extent necessary (if collecting
sensitive PII, the form must display current Privacy Act notice). In addition, for each information collection
instrument, respondent burden will be tracked and submitted to OMB.
4
See https://www.federalreserve.gov/data.htm.

Federal Reserve developed a monthly sample survey. To benchmark the monthly sample series,
the Federal Reserve continued to conduct the universe finance company survey at five-year
intervals. In 1980, this benchmark survey was changed from a universe to a sample survey. Over
the years the Board has changed the reporting form according to changes in industry and the
Board’s data needs. The latest major change occurred in 2013 when the reporting form was
revised to obtain detailed information on student loans and the authorized respondent panel size
was increased from 70 to 150 finance companies.
The FR 2248 is benchmarked on a quinquennial basis using data from the FR 3033s
survey. The FR 3033s survey is the second stage of a two-stage survey sent to finance companies
that respond to a simple questionnaire, the FR 3033p, sent to all known domestic finance and
mortgage companies. The FR 3033p requests information about each company’s total net assets,
areas of specialization, and other characteristics in order to first identify a potential universe of
domestic finance companies, from which the sample of finance companies is drawn.
Finance companies provide a significant share of short- and medium-term credit to
businesses, and business investment, both for fixed capital and inventory, is one of the more
cyclically sensitive components of Gross Domestic Product. Because of the significant effect
monetary policy can have on business investment, in part via the availability of credit,
monitoring the sources of funding to businesses is important for the conduct of monetary policy.
The information collected on the FR 2248 is not available from other sources.
Description of Information Collection
The FR 2248 collects information monthly on amounts outstanding in major categories of
consumer and business credit held by finance companies and on major short-term liabilities of
finance companies. For quarter-end months (March, June, September, and December), the report
also collects information on other assets and liabilities outstanding as well as information on
capital accounts in order to provide a full balance sheet. In addition, a supplemental section
collects data about assets that have been pooled by finance companies and sold to third parties
that issue securities based on those assets. The supplemental section is organized in the same
four categories of credit (consumer, real estate, business, and lease-related). The special
addendum section may be used if the need arises for the collection of timely information on
questions of immediate concern to the Federal Reserve. When necessary, respondents would be
asked, no more than twice a year, to provide answers to a limited number of relevant questions,
which would be distributed in advance to ease burden and which would take, on average, ten
minutes to complete. This addendum provides the Federal Reserve a valuable sou rce of
information regarding timely topics and events in financial markets.
Respondent Panel
The FR 2248 authorized panel size is 150 finance companies.

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Time Schedule for Information Collection
The majority of survey respondents submit their FR 2248 data monthly to the Federal
Reserve Banks. Respondents submit quarterly data for quarter-end months only. The data are
edited and transmitted to the Board for central processing. All data are due at the Board on the
18 th business day after the end of the month.
Public Availability of Data
Aggregate data from the FR 2248 are published in the Board’s monthly statistical
releases Consumer Credit (G.19) and Finance Companies (G.20), and in the quarterly statistical
release Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1).
Legal Status
The FR 2248 is authorized by sections 2A and 12A of the Federal Reserve Act (FRA).
Section 2A of the FRA requires that the Board and the Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC) maintain long-run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the
economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of
maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates (12 U.S.C. § 225a).
Section 12A of the FRA further requires the FOMC to implement regulations relating to the open
market operations conducted by Federal Reserve Banks with a view to accommodating
commerce and business and with regard to their bearing upon the general credit situation of the
country (12 U.S.C. § 263). The Board and FOMC use the information obtained through the
FR 2248 to discharge these responsibilities. The FR 2248 is voluntary.
Although the Board releases aggregate data derived from the FR 2248 in the monthly
G.20 and G.19 statistical releases, and in the quarterly Z.1 statistical release, individual finance
company information provided by each respondent is generally treated as confidential.
Information collected on the FR 2248 is likely to constitute nonpublic commercial or financial
information, which is both customarily and actually treated as private by the respondent.
Accordingly, such information may be kept confidential by the Board pursuant to exemption 4 of
the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4)). If it should be determined that any
information collected on the FR 2248 must be released, respondents would be notified.
Consultation Outside the Agency
There has been no consultation outside the Federal Reserve System.
Public Comments
On November 4, 2021, the Board published an initial notice in the Federal Register (86
FR 60819) requesting public comment for 60 days on the extension, without revision, of the
FR 2248. The comment period for this notice expired on January 3, 2022. The Board did not
receive any comments. The Board adopted the extension, without revision, of the FR 2248 as

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originally proposed. On February 17, 2022, the Board published a final notice in the Federal
Register (87 FR 9053).
Estimate of Respondent Burden
As shown in the table below, the estimated total annual burden for the FR 2248 is 750
hours. These reporting requirements represent less than 1 percent of the Board’s total paperwork
burden.
Estimated
number of
respondents5
150
150
150

FR 2248
Monthly
Quarterly
Addendum
Total

Annual
frequency
8
4
2

Estimated
Estimated
average time annual burden
per response
hours
20 minutes
400
30 minutes
300
10 minutes
50
750

The estimated total annual cost to the public for the FR 2248 is $44,363.6
Sensitive Questions
This collection of information contains no questions of a sensitive nature, as defined by
OMB guidelines.
Estimate of Cost to the Federal Reserve System
The estimated cost to the Federal Reserve System for collecting and processing this
report is $110,500.

5

Of these respondents, 6 are considered small entities as defined by the Small Business Administration (i.e., entities
with less than $600 million in total assets), https://www.sba.gov/document/support--table-size-standards.
6
Total cost to the public was estimated using the following formula: percent of staff time, multiplied by annual
burden hours, multiplied by hourly rates (30% Office & Administrative Support at $20, 45% Financial Managers at
$73, 15% Lawyers at $72, and 10% Chief Executives at $95). Hourly rates for each occupational group are the
(rounded) mean hourly wages from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment and Wages
May 2020, published March 31, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm. Occupations are defined
using the BLS Standard Occupational Classification System, https://www.bls.gov/soc/.

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