News release: “The Federal Trade Commission today announced final rules and guidelines that will promote the accuracy and integrity of information provided to credit reporting agencies (commonly called “credit bureaus”) and allow consumers to dispute inaccurate information about them directly with furnishers, the financial institutions and other entities that furnish the information to the credit reporting agencies. Information in credit reports is used widely to determine a consumer’s eligibility for credit, employment, insurance and rental housing, and errors in a consumer’s report can result in denial of those benefits or higher costs.

The FTC is issuing these rules and guidelines with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift Supervision (the Agencies) under section 312 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act), which amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The effective date for these final rules and guidelines is July 1, 2010.”