According to a paper by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) blockchain technology should be adopted by China’s secondary loan market; as CoinDesk reports the paper came out of a trip made by the regulator to their counterparts in the UK and France; European banks are putting together a program to test blockchain technology for the issuance of syndicated loans; the CBRC also considers blockchain technology to potentially be helpful for automating compliance. Source.
Consumer borrowing increased by $15.2 billion in February, according to a report from the Federal Reserve; credit card borrowing increased by $2.9 billion helping total credit card debt outstanding to increase to $1 trillion; auto loan and student loan borrowing also increased in February by $12.3 billion. Source
The Federal Open Market Committee raised its target for the federal funds rate to 0.50% to 0.75% at its December meeting; Fed officials also signaled a more aggressive approach for rate increases in 2017 with projections showing the potential for three more rate increases next year; improvements in the labor market, positive GDP growth and stable inflation were key market factors for the rate increase. Source
The National Consumer Assistance Plan from the three major US credit bureaus was created following a 2015 settlement and seeks to improve credit reporting accuracy; it will exclude tax liens and civil judgments that do not conform to reporting agency standards; exclusion of these two items is likely to help consumers receive a slight increase in their credit score; medical debt is also being excluded until 180 days after the delinquency; VantageScore and other credit agencies are also taking some new factors into consideration when calculating credit scores including trended data and number of accounts. Source
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