In its new annual report covering its fair lending activities during 2016, the CFPB identifies the following three areas on which it “will increase our focus” in 2017:

• Redlining.  The CFPB “will continue to evaluate whether lenders have intentionally discouraged prospective applicants in minority neighborhoods.”
• Mortgage and Student Loan Servicing.  The CFPB “will evaluate whether some borrowers who are behind on their mortgage or student loan payments may have more difficulty working out a new solution with the servicer because of their race, ethnicity, sex, or age.”
• Small Business Lending.  “Congress expressed concern that women-owned and minority-owned businesses may experience discrimination when they apply for credit, and has required the CFPB to take steps to ensure their fair access to credit.  Small business lending supervisory activity will also help expand and enhance the Bureau’s knowledge in this area, including the credit process; existing data collection process; and the nature, extent, and management of fair lending risk.”

The three 2017 priority areas are the same as those identified by Patrice Ficklin, Associate Director of the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending, in her December 2016 blog post that outlined the CFPB ‘s fair lending priorities for 2017.  However, unlike Ms. Ficklin’s blog post, the fair lending report includes the CFPB’s plans to ramp up its small business lending supervisory activity. 

The report states that in 2016, CFPB fair lending supervisory and public enforcement actions resulted in approximately $46 million in remediation.  In the report’s section on supervisory activities, the CFPB reviews information previously provided in its June 2016 Mortgage Servicing Special Edition of Supervisory Highlights and its Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 editions of Supervisory Highlights.  In the section on enforcement, the CFPB reviews several fair lending public enforcement actions and its implementation of several consent orders.  The report also discusses HMDA warning letters sent by the CFPB in October 2016 and notes that in 2016, the CFPB referred 8 matters to the Department of Justice.  The CFPB states that at the end of 2016, it had a number of pending redlining investigations as well as a number of pending investigations in other areas.  It is unclear how much collaboration between the CFPB and DOJ will occur in the Trump Administration. 

In the section on rulemaking, the CFPB discusses its final rule amending Regulation C (which implements HMDA) and related HMDA/Regulation C developments.  The CFPB also discusses the status of the new uniform residential loan application, the collection of race and ethnicity information under Regulation B, and its March 2017 proposal regarding amendments to Regulation B to facilitate Regulation C compliance and address other issues. 

In discussing its progress in developing rules on the collection of small business lending data to implement Section 1071 of Dodd-Frank, the CFPB tracks verbatim much of what was stated in last year’s fair lending report.  (Section 1071 amended the ECOA to require financial institutions to collect and maintain certain data in connection with credit applications made by women- or minority-owned businesses and small businesses.)  As it did last year, the CFPB states that the first stage of its Section 1071 work will be focused on outreach and research, after which it “will begin developing proposed rules concerning the data to be collected and determining the appropriate procedures and privacy protections needed for  information-gathering and public disclosure.”  The report again states that the CFPB “has begun to explore some of the issues involved in the rulemaking, including engaging numerous stakeholders about the statutory reporting requirements.”  This year’s report adds the statement above that the CFPB intends to use its future small lending supervisory activity to “help expand and enhance the Bureau’s knowledge in this area, including the credit process; existing data collection processes; and the nature, extent, and management of fair lending risk.” 

Two other sections of the report discuss the CFPB’s coordination with other federal agencies on fair lending issues and outreach to industry and consumers (such as through speaking engagements and roundtables, blog posts, and supervisory highlights).  The last section of the report is intended to satisfy certain ECOA and HMDA reporting requirements, including providing a summary of other agencies’ ECOA enforcement efforts and reporting on the utility of certain HMDA reporting requirements.