Methodology
How U.S. Mortgage Index builds public lender profiles
U.S. Mortgage Index (USMI) is a U.S. public-source mortgage research and verification platform operated by US Mortgage Index LLC. 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.
Data and methodology
- Data sources — the public datasets USMI uses.
- Mortgage rates — how rate references are shown.
- Corrections — how a published record can be reviewed.
- Editorial policy — what payment does not change.
- Reports — published data-led reports.
From public records to published profiles
The diagram describes the current publication architecture conservatively. It does not claim that every source is applied to every institution, or that identity resolution is complete for the entire U.S. mortgage market.
- 01Public sourcesFDIC, NCUA, HMDA, CFPB, CRA, FFIEC/NIC, and other approved official sources.
- 02Source ingestionRaw public records are observed and stored with provenance.
- 03StandardizationCleaning, normalization, and controlled public fields.
- 04Identity resolutionInstitutions are matched across official identifiers and verified public records. Low-confidence matches remain unpublished.
- 05Public profile assemblyIdentity, activity, complaints, CRA, history, and relationships are assembled only from publication-authorized records.
- 06PublicationSearchable profiles with sources, methodology, corrections, and ongoing updates.
Source hierarchy
Identity fields prefer stable public identifiers. NMLS means the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry, a state and multistate licensing system. It is not a federal agency database. FDIC and OCC records are federal bank sources and apply only where those agencies are the source. Activity and complaint fields retain their native source scope and observation dates.
Published HMDA activity currently shown on lender profiles covers official FFIEC/CFPB data years 2018–2025 for reporters matched to USMI identities. These figures are USMI matched-reporter aggregates, not a complete census of U.S. mortgage activity.
Identity 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 Low-confidence matches should remain unpublished until reviewed.
What USMI publishes
U.S. 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.
What USMI does not infer
Public datasets can be delayed, incomplete, renamed after mergers, or defined differently across agencies. Users should verify consequential facts with the original source.
What U.S. Mortgage Index is not
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 is not endorsement
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. U.S. Mortgage Index does not treat complaint allegations as independently verified facts.
Freshness and observation dates
Observed dates describe when a public record was reviewed for publication. They are not real-time update stamps and do not mean every field was refreshed on that date.
Mortgage-rate measures
Published now.USMI currently displays third-party mortgage-rate information from Mortgage News Daily. USMI does not currently publish its own proprietary rate index or rate-comparison service. On the Mortgage Rates page, USMI does not copy those figures into its database or calculators, and it does not independently verify that publisher's freshness.
Reference-only material. Freddie Mac PMMS is a weekly national average of conventional conforming purchase-oriented fixed rates. The MBA Weekly Applications Survey is a separate weekly series; its 5/1 ARM is not the same product as a 7/6 SOFR ARM. Those weekly references are not the daily Mortgage News Daily snapshot. Their numerical values are not currently reproduced on the public site while publication review is pending. Rate is not APR. A national reference is not a personalized lender offer.
Not currently published. USMI observed market ranges by product and a USMI comparable median remain private research. They are not live rates. Individual provider identities and component rates stay private. The notes below describe that unpublished method so it is not mistaken for a current public index.
The unpublished range method calculates each product separately. Purchase observations are not mixed with refinance observations. Fixed-rate products are not mixed with ARM products. Different ARM structures, such as 5/6, 7/6, and 10/6, are not mixed. The national weekly benchmark is not a purchase, refinance, or ARM market range.
That unpublished range is a low-to-high envelope from qualifying lender-advertised observations for one product, with known points between 0 and 1 and at least four independent sources. One independent provider contributes at most one selected observation per product. When a provider publishes more than one eligible discount-point option, the method selects the verified zero-point option, or otherwise the eligible option closest to zero. It does not select the lowest advertised interest rate. The range is not an average. APR is not used. A midpoint is not published. A product with fewer than four qualifying observations remains unavailable. This range is not currently published.
The comparable median uses a stricter apples-to-apples method and, in the private research work, is defined only for the 30-year fixed purchase cohort. It would require at least six independent qualifying observations. It is not currently published.
Corrections
Proposed updates are submitted through the public correction form, reviewed by administrators, logged, and only then reflected in the public profile if accepted.
Understand the data in context
Ask USMI can help with entity matching, a missing value, or which checks are required before information is published. This page describes the method. It is not a verification of any one profile.