Fair Lending

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The CFPB’s Fair Lending Director, together with senior officials from other federal agencies, have sent a letter to The Appraisal Foundation (TAF) commenting on proposed changes to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP).  (TAF is a private, non-governmental organization that sets professional standards for appraisers.)  The other agencies joining in the letter are…

The CFPB, FTC, DOJ, and Federal Reserve Board have filed a joint amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit urging the court to reverse a district court ruling that an individual who had already received credit from the defendant and who was not currently applying to the defendant for credit…

In their June 2021 request for information regarding financial institutions’ use of artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning, the CFPB and federal banking regulators flagged fair lending concerns as one of the risks arising from the growing use of AI by financial institutions.

Last week, in an apparent effort to increase its scrutiny of machine…

On November 22, 2021, the CFPB filed its seventh status report with the California federal district court hearing the lawsuit brought by the California Reinvestment Coalition, National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, and two individual plaintiffs in 2019.  The purpose of the suit was to force the Bureau to issue a proposal implementing the…

After reviewing federal regulators’ traditional theory of redlining, we discuss the types of underwriting practices that are likely targeted by Director Chopra’s recent comments expressing concern about “algorithmic redlining,” examine how the use of machine learning (ML) underwriting models incorporating alternative data can be more inclusive than traditional logistic regression models and result in more…

Expansion of CRA coverage.  On November 1, New York Governor Hochul signed into law amendments (S.5246-A/A.6247-A) to the New York Community Reinvestment Act (NYCRA) that expand the NYCRA’s coverage to non-depository mortgage lenders.  The amendments are effective November 1, 2022.  New York now joins a small group of states, including Illinois and Massachusetts, that…

Targeted advertising has become an important marketing tool for many providers of consumer financial services.  After discussing the primary screening methods offered to providers for identifying consumers to receive their advertising, we look at claims made in private lawsuits involving the intersection of targeted marketing and anti-discrimination laws and how the courts have responded to…

In Part II of this two-part podcast, we continue our examination of the CFPB’s proposed rule implementing Sec. 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act which would impose significant new data collection and reporting requirements on lenders in connection with credit applications made by small businesses, including women- or minority-owned small businesses.  We discuss the “firewall provision”…

In Part I of this two-part podcast, we examine the CFPB’s proposed rule implementing Sec. 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act which would impose significant new data collection and reporting requirements on lenders in connection with credit applications made by women- or minority-owned small businesses.  After reviewing the history of Sec. 1071 rulemaking (including the lawsuit…