Methodology

How records become profiles

This page explains how public records are compiled into institution profiles. Profiles are descriptive research records. They are not recommendations, eligibility decisions, or assessments of mortgage products.

Source hierarchy

Identity and licensing fields prefer regulator and official public sources such as NMLS, FDIC, OCC, and related registries. Activity and complaint fields retain their native source scope and observation dates.

Matching

Where available, stable identifiers such as NMLS company ID, FDIC certificate number, and LEI are preferred over name-only matches. Low-confidence matches should remain unpublished until reviewed.

Complaint limitations

Public lender-profile CFPB figures use publication-authorized mappings to USMI entity profiles. They are not produced by a company-name search on the profile page. CFPB complaint records are submissions received by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Complaint volume does not establish misconduct or wrongdoing. Counts can be influenced by company size, mortgage servicing volume, time in operation, consumer awareness and reporting, and corporate reporting structure. US Mortgage Index does not treat complaint allegations as independently verified facts.

Corrections

Proposed updates are submitted through the public correction form, reviewed by administrators, logged, and only then reflected in the public profile if accepted.

Public category, canonical class, and verified role

US Mortgage Index keeps three concepts separate. Public category is the consumer-facing institution type: Bank, Credit Union, or Mortgage Company. Canonical entity class is the internal identity classification used to match source records. A verified role, such as HMDA_REPORTER, is source-backed evidence of a specific activity and does not by itself prove every mortgage-market function such as lender, servicer, or broker.

Mortgage Company is USMI's public presentation category for verified nondepository mortgage or financial institutions that meet publication criteria. It is not a claim that USMI has enumerated every NMLS-licensed company. HMDA reporter evidence does not imply NMLS verification when an NMLS company ID is absent.

Known limitations

Public datasets can be delayed, incomplete, renamed after mergers, or defined differently across agencies. Users should verify consequential facts with the original source.

The current published national coverage includes official FDIC bank profiles and NCUA federally insured credit-union profiles as they are released. Additional institution categories, including mortgage companies, appear in the public directory only when published. For banks, location generally refers to headquarters. For credit unions, location may refer to an NCUA-reported main office or, where a main-office record was unavailable, the reported mailing location. Coverage is source-specific and does not represent every mortgage lender, broker, or nonbank mortgage company in the United States.

Verification describes the US Mortgage Index public-source matching process. It is not an endorsement or recommendation.