UDAAP and Fair Lending Developments: 2024 Year-in-Review and 2025 Predictions — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Putting AI to Work in Compliance
An Illinois federal district court judge presiding over a revived redlining case denied a joint motion to vacate a 2024 voluntary settlement between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and a Chicago-based non-bank...more
As previously reported, in March 2025 the CFPB and Townstone Financial (Townstone) filed a joint motion with a U.S. District Court seeking to reverse the November 2024 consent order between the parties that resolved CFPB...more
Saying that the bureau under the Biden Administration abused its power, the CFPB is seeking to reverse its settlement with Townstone Financial....more
With the change in administration, enforcement actions at the federal level are expected to decrease, reflecting President Trump’s focus on deregulation. Indeed, during President Trump’s first term, the number of enforcement...more
During the last 15 years there have been notable changes in regulatory enforcement of potential redlining situations. This article addresses those changes....more
Following lengthy litigation, the CFPB is attempting to close the books on its case against Townstone Financial alleging discriminatory lending practices and redlining African American neighborhoods in Chicago....more
On October 29, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state’s Division on Civil Rights (DCR) released a report detailing the findings of a multi-year investigation into Republic First Bank (Republic) and its...more
To keep you informed of recent activities, below are several of the most significant federal and state events that have influenced the Consumer Financial Services industry over the past week...more
On October 15, the CFPB and DOJ announced an enforcement action against a mortgage company, alleging it engaged in redlining against majority-Black neighborhoods in the greater Birmingham, Alabama area. According to the...more
On October 10, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a landmark redlining settlement with Citadel Federal Credit Union (Citadel), marking the first such agreement with a credit union in the DOJ’s history. This...more
The Justice Department announced that Citadel Federal Credit Union has agreed to pay more than $6.5 million to resolve allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of redlining majority-Black and Hispanic...more
Saying that reverse redlining is a form of discrimination, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has refused to dismiss a discrimination case alleging that Texas developer Colony Ridge specifically...more
Previously, I have written about regulatory enforcement of anti-redlining regulations. I pointed out the problems and potentially misleading statistical conclusions caused by the application of what is called a “REMA” or...more
In this month's article, we share some of our top "bites" for the prior and current month covered during the July 2024 webinar....more
As any bank professional regulatory compliance professional knows redlining is the hottest issue today and has been since Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the “Combatting Redlining Initiative” in October 2021. Since...more
On July 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held in Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection v. Townstone Financial, Inc., that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) prohibits discriminatory conduct,...more
In a recent article in National Mortgage Professional entitled "Manufacturing Fair Lending”, former chief of the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section at the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr, Paul...more
In emails in recent months we've warned bankers about the extremely aggressive enforcement of anti-redlining policies. This is becoming more and more obvious every day as more banks get threatened with referral to the DOJ....more
Since October 2021, the prudential bank regulators in concert with the Department of Justice have been pursuing the “Anti-Redlining Initiative” announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on October 21, 2021. During that...more
For the last two years, the federal regulatory agencies have been waging a war on redlining by mortgage lenders — a war that shows no signs of abating. Originally published in Law360 - December 12, 2023....more
There has been much understandable handwringing about the new CRA and its complexity as well as the high CRA exam failure rate predicted by regulators based on the new assessment areas and the higher performance standards...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Patriot Bank (Patriot or Bank) has agreed to pay $1.9 million to resolve allegations that the Bank engaged in a pattern or practice of redlining majority-Black and Hispanic...more
In this article, we share a timeline of our monthly "bites" for 2023 applicable to mortgage along with some additional related information. ...more
As I write this article the Department of Justice is pursuing a record-breaking number of “redlining” cases against banks and mortgage lenders. The “Anti-redlining Initiative” was announced October 22, 2021, by Attorney...more
Recently the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into a proposed consent order with Ameris Bank to resolve allegations of redlining from 2016 through 2021 in majority Black and Hispanic areas in the Bank’s Jacksonville,...more