Argus Information and Advisory Services, a subsidiary of TransUnion, has agreed that it will not seek any government contracts with the CFPB for three years, following action by several government agencies.
Argus analyzes credit card and credit report data along with certain economic data to provide benchmarking and market analysis products to commercial and government clients. The, Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve Board (FRB), the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the CFPB all had contracts with Argus for such services.
While the agency announced its decision on Jan. 21, the actions that led to the agreement not to seek any government contracts with the CFPB occurred well before President Trump took office.
In March 2024, the Justice Department took action against Argus in connection with allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA). Argus paid $37 million to resolve allegations that the company “ingested information in violation of its federal government contracts and improperly monetized it in its commercial business.”
In particular, the complaint alleged that for over ten years, from 2010 through 2020, Argus did this with anonymized credit card data that it received under contracts with the CFPB, OCC, FRB, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in order to create synthetic (proxy) data that it incorporated into the products and services it sold to some of its own customers.
The CFPB apparently notified Argus that it was considering bringing additional actions against it which led to Argus agreeing not to do business with the CFPB for three years.
Of note, the CFPB announced the action on January 21, 2025—the day after Trump took office. Trump had been expected to fire CFPB Director Rohit Chopra upon taking office, since administration officials have been critical of Chopra’s aggressive regulatory regime. Trump did not fire Chopra yet—allowing the agency to continue to operate under his leadership.
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