CFPB Releases 2016 Fair Lending Report

04/25/17—The CFPB released its 2016 Fair Lending Report highlighting activities in prioritization, supervision, enforcement, rulemaking, interagency coordination, and outreach for 2016.

The CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity works to stop illegal discrimination related to credit transactions that consumers face as a result of their age, race, national origin, or sex.

In the 2016 key efforts made by the CFPB to protect consumers were:

• Engaging in significant outreach with industry, civil rights advocates, consumer groups, and other stakeholders to ensure a diverse set of viewpoints are incorporated into their work;
• Working with other government regulators and agencies to ensure companies reimbursed harmed consumers and put tools and processes in place to protect consumers; and
• Encouraging lenders to find ways to expand access to credit in responsible ways, including to consumers with limited proficiency in English.

For 2017, the CFPB will continue to identify areas of new and emerging fair lending risks, and will work to monitor institutions for compliance in:

• Redlining—to evaluate whether lenders have intentionally discouraged prospective applicants in minority neighborhoods;
• Mortgage and student loan servicing—to determine whether some borrowers who are behind on their mortgage or student loan payments have more difficulty working out a new solution with the servicer because of their race, ethnicity, age, or gender.
• Small business lending—focusing on how to make sure small business owners, including women-owned and minority-owned businesses, can better access lending.

CFPB Blog, Report.