Reporting forms

FR 2248

Domestic Finance Company Report of Consolidated Assets and Liabilities

Description: This report collects monthly balance sheet data from finance and mortgage companies on major categories of consumer and business credit, short-term liabilities, and retail, wholesale, and lease financing receivables that have been sold and securitized. For quarter-end months (March, June, September, and December), additional asset and liability items are collected to provide a full balance sheet.

OMB: 7100-0005

Purpose: The data are used to estimate the finance company component of the consumer credit statistics and the flow of funds accounts. At the end of 2004, finance companies represented the second largest provider of consumer credit, owning 17 percent of all consumer credit and managing an additional 7 percent of consumer credit in the form of securitized pools. Finance companies also provide a significant share of short- and intermediate-term credit to businesses. Business investment, both for fixed capital and inventory, is one of the more cyclically sensitive components of GDP. 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 implementation of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve has no other information collection that supplies the data obtained on the FR 2248, and the aggregate burden is low because of the small sample size and the relatively low frequency.

Background: The FR 2248 replaces a consumer credit report initiated in the 1940s that collected data on consumer lending, sales, and business finance lending. The monthly FR 2248 and the FR 2248A quarterly supplement reports were initiated in 1983. In January 1988, the reports were combined but retained the monthly and quarterly reporting of items. In February 1989, five items were added to capture the increased activity in securitizing financing receivables. In 2002, the survey was modified in three ways. First, the authorized panel size was reduced to eighty finance companies because the number of finance companies responding to the survey had declined because of industry consolidation and attrition. Second, four questions on the breakdown of real estate loans for one- to four-family structures were added to improve flow of funds estimates of such loans. Third, a special addendum section, which may be used if the need arises for timely information on questions of immediate concern to the Board was added. In 2005 the scope of the survey was broadened to include mortgage companies - that is, companies in which the majority of assets are liens on real estate.

Respondent Panel: The panel consists of a stratified sample of eighty domestic finance and mortgage companies selected from respondents to the quinquennial Finance Company Questionnaire (FR 3033p/s). Participation is voluntary.

Frequency: Monthly, as of the last calendar day of the month; some data items are reported only for the quarter-end months.

Public Release: Aggregate data are published in the Board's monthly statistical releases Consumer Credit (G.19) and Finance Companies (G.20) and in the quarterly statistical release Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States (Z.1), (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/) and in the Federal Reserve Bulletin (Tables 1.51, 1.52, and 1.55).

 
Last update: October 19, 2005