CFPB Released 2015 Fair Lending Report
May 6, 2016
Last week, the CFPB released its fourth Fair Lending Report outlinging the agency’s fair lending activity in 2015. A few notable items include:
- Regarding indirect auto, CFPB Director Director Cordray “urge[d] indirect auto lenders to carefully consider the terms of these orders as they evaluate compliance in their own lending programs.”
- Last year, the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity recovered $108 million in restitution to consumers.
- Fair lending “risk based prioritization” is focused on mortgage, indirect auto, credit card, and small business lending. Small business data collection is now in the pre-rule stage.
- The Bureau acknowledged other regulators may consider fair lending findings when assessing Community Reinvestment Act performance, Fair Housing Act evaluations, and merger acquisition applications.
- Settlement distribution included Synchrony distribution of $200 million; PNC distribution of $35 million to “tens of thousands” of consumers; and Ally distribution of $80 million to over 300,000 borrowers. Further, Ally paid an additional roughly $40 million to customers based on 2014 alleged practices.
- Mortgage servicing modules include Limited English proficiency questions.
- Regarding the CFPB’s BISG methodology, the Bureau indicated it “expects the methodology will continue to evolve as enhancements are identified that further increase accuracy and performance.”
- At the end of 2015, the Bureau had “a number” of pending investigations and/ or settlement negotiations for redlining, indirect auto lending, and credit cards.
- CFPB referred eight actions to the DOJ, while the Federal Reserve Board and FDIC referred half that amount of the CFPB at four each.