CFPB Report Recaps 2017 Fair Lending Activities

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") highlighted its efforts to promote "fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit" throughout 2017.

According to the Fair Lending Report, the CFPB:

• initiated enforcement actions against (i) a bank for discrimination in its credit card lending and (ii) a mortgage lender that neglected to report accurate data about the applications it received and loans it granted to customers;
• monitored lenders and services for compliance with the CFPB's anti-discrimination laws;
• "issued a no-action letter to a company that uses alternative, or non-traditional data to make credit and pricing decisions." The CFPB said that the letter "support[s] innovation and enable[s] 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 establish new guidelines on how examiners assess whether covered mortgage lenders are reporting precise data; and
• communicated information to the public regarding fair lending.