by David Stein, Eric Mogilnicki, Jeremy Newell, Michael Nonaka, and Andrew Smith
On Wednesday, September 1, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau”) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking for proposed rules that would require creditors to collect and report data about lending to small businesses, focusing on minority-owned and women-owned small businesses (the “Proposed Rules”). The Bureau issued the Proposed Rules to implement Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2011. Section 1071 amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) to create a mandatory data collection and reporting requirement for business lending to promote the ECOA’s fair lending objectives. In July 2021, the Bureau committed to issuing the Proposed Rules no later than September 30, 2021, as part of a settlement agreement reached in a lawsuit brought by consumer advocates in 2019 regarding the delayed issuance of rules to implement Section 1071. Comments on the Proposed Rules are due 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.