The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) makes it unlawful for creditors to discriminate in any aspect of a credit transaction on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract), because all or part of an applicant’s income derives from public assistance, or because an applicant has in good faith exercised any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. Historically, ECOA has been implemented in Regulation B of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board). The Dodd- Frank Act transferred rulemaking authority for ECOA to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB), effective July 21, 2011.
In general, the interim final rules recently published by the CFPB substantially duplicate the inherited regulations, making only certain non-substantive, technical, formatting, and stylistic changes. To minimize any potential confusion, the CFPB is preserving where possible past numbering systems by republishing regulations with CFPB part numbers that correspond to regulations in existence prior to the transfer of rulemaking authority. Citations to Regulation B previously appeared as 12 CFR 202; now the citations appear as 12 CFR 1002. Notably, the interim final rules do not impose any new substantive obligations on regulated entities.
In future rulemakings, the CFPB expects to amend Regulation B to implement certain other changes to ECOA made by the Dodd-Frank Act, such as the addition of small business loan data collection and changes to consumers’ right to a copy of an appraisal, as well as possibly increasing the duration of Regulation B’s record-keeping requirement in light of the expansion of the statute of limitations under the Dodd-Frank Act from two to five years.
Appendix A has been revised in this interim final rule to update the Federal agencies that should be listed by particular categories of creditors in adverse action notices pursuant to § 1002.9(b)(1). Thus, the list has been revised to reflect the elimination of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the grant of enforcement authority under ECOA to the Bureau for depository institutions and credit unions with total assets of more than $10 billion and their affiliates.
So, there are no substantial issues to deal with at this point. You may need to update citations to Regulation B contained in your ECOA policy and procedures, and in your ECOA training materials.
A copy revised Regulation B is located at: https://mycomplianceresource.com/CFPB-Reg-B-Equal-Credit-Opportunity.html. The Federal Register copy is available at: https://mycomplianceresource.com/CFPB-The-Inherited-Regulations.html.
