Access to credit is a key to economic mobility and prosperity for consumers and small businesses alike. Our annual Fair Lending Report to Congress highlights how in 2017 we continued to focus on promoting fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit in mortgage lending, continued fair lending supervision of servicing and small business lending, and embarked on new efforts to encourage innovation in expanding credit access.
As the report explains, in 2017 the Bureau:
- announced enforcement actions to address discrimination by a bank in its credit card lending, and against a mortgage lender that failed to report accurate data about the applications it received and loans it made to consumers
- monitored lenders and servicers for compliance with the anti-discrimination laws under the Bureau’s jurisdiction
- issued a “no-action” letter to a company that uses alternative, or non-traditional, data to make credit and pricing decisions to support innovation and enable people with limited credit history, among others, to obtain credit or obtain credit on better terms
- led efforts to collaborate with other federal banking regulators to issue new guidelines on how examiners evaluate whether covered mortgage lenders are reporting accurate data
- communicated information on fair lending to the public at large, including industry, consumer and civil rights group, and other stakeholders, through blog posts, Supervisory Highlights reports, and serving as presenters and panelists at a record number of events
We accomplished much in 2017, and continue to advance the Bureau’s fair lending work. Learn more about how the law protects you against credit discrimination.