UDAAP and Fair Lending Developments: 2024 Year-in-Review and 2025 Predictions — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Putting AI to Work in Compliance
A federal judge has rejected the Trump Administration’s request to release from court supervision a bank that had been accused of discriminatory lending....more
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
On May 28, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion to terminate its redlining consent order against a New Jersey-based bank. The five-year order, entered in September 2022, resolved allegations that the banks violated...more
On March 26, the CFPB, in its first press release in over 50 days, announced its intention to seek to vacate a redlining settlement previously imposed on a nonbank retail-mortgage creditor and broker based in Chicago. As...more
On January 17, the CFPB released its complaint and proposed consent order against a nondepository mortgage company, alleging violations of the ECOA and Regulation B as well as the CFPA. The CFPB seeks to enjoin the company...more
On January 17, 2025, the CFPB filed a complaint against an Illinois-based non-depository mortgage lender for allegedly engaging in discriminatory practices. The CFPB alleges the lender engaged in improper redlining by...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
On September 13, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss in CFPB v. Colony Ridge, Case No. 4:23-cv-04729....more
On September 17, the DOJ and HUD announced a settlement with a New Jersey-based bank to resolve “redlining” lending discrimination allegations. The DOJ’s complaint claimed that from 2018 through at least 2022, the bank failed...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
Every banker should know by now that the Department of Justice announced an “Anti-Redlining” crusade in October 2021. In his October 2021, press release, Attorney General Merrick Garland, proclaimed that redlining is...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
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and state authorities have agreed to a consent order with a large national bank to resolve allegations that the bank engaged in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination by affecting...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
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
On October 19, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that its Combating Redlining Initiative has resulted in over $107 million in relief for communities adversely affected by lending discrimination by mortgage...more
On August 28, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its eighth redlining settlement under its Combatting Redlining Initiative. The settlement between the DOJ and the American Bank of Oklahoma, which originated from a...more
As shown by a new report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) is focusing its fair lending work on mortgage origination and pricing, small business lending, redlining, and the use of artificial...more