2022 Advocacy Week Policy Agenda
117th Session of Congress
Photo by: ©tonktiti – stock.adobe.com
Investing in a Just Economy
Our 2022 Advocacy Week Policy Agenda serves to prepare attendees of NCRC’s Advocacy Week to meet with their members of Congress during our Just Economy Conference. It is a call to action on three core issues, discussed in detail below: strengthen and expand the Community Reinvestment Act; strengthen Section 1071 of ECOA; and provide full and equitable funding for community investments (including housing). NCRC’s full Policy Agenda for the 117th Congress (published in June 2021) can be viewed on online at ncrc.org.[1] NCRC will update this full Policy Agenda for the forthcoming 118th Congress.
For over 30 years, NCRC has worked to create a just economy. We believe capital of various forms must be engaged in building an equitable and fair economy. There is a legal obligation for banks and other financial institutions to invest in and lend in low-and moderate-income communities. There is also a moral obligation to address the racial wealth divide and the overall concentration of wealth in society.
Our nation continues to face ongoing political and social crises including racial injustice, economic insecurity, public health, and climate change. This moment is not the first time we have grappled with these issues, but their confluence during a time of pitched concern over what it means to participate in a just economy has sparked a critical push to invigorate oversight of corporate practices and to direct federal spending where it is most needed. Yet much remains to be done. This Congress should take action to strengthen the laws that will advance a just economy – and to invest adequate resources in our communities.
We believe the following principles should guide our policymakers:
Invest Local: Strengthen credit and capital and development in local communities, including those that have been underserved.
Invest Forward: Ensure advances in technology and industry do not inhibit needed progress in financial stability, housing and homeownership, and that all communities share the benefits of innovation.
Invest Equitably: Strengthen the nation’s commitment to fair housing and fair lending and an inclusive economy.
Invest in Community: Strengthen investment in the infrastructures of housing, community economic development and small business.
We urge the 117th Congress to take action to create vibrant communities, make our financial markets fairer and more transparent, and recommit to an expansive view of economic opportunity. Our grassroots coalition of housing practitioners, housing counselors, community developers and consumer advocates stand ready to do the hard work necessary to move this agenda forward. We are committed to staying the course until this work is realized in every community across the country.
Sincerely,
Jesse Van Tol
Chief Executive Officer
Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act
NCRC 2022 Advocacy Week Asks
Submit a comment letter in support of a strengthened Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulation, during the current comment period (through August 5th).
Expand CRA coverage and expand community reinvestment obligations throughout the financial services industry. We ask Congress to pass the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act (originally introduced in 2019) urging CRA expansion to other financial entities, and to take other steps to expand CRA or include CRA-like public benefits considerations for credit unions, insurance companies and investment firms.[2]
Background and current status
Members of Congress should voice support for a strong CRA Rulemaking.
On May 5, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) regarding CRA (comments on the NPR are due on August 5).[3] The voices of members of Congress will be vital in this next phase of CRA reform and the CRA regulatory agencies need to hear from them. Congress should urge regulators to ensure that the interagency rulemaking provides for fair and flexible local lending and investments, a commitment to racial equity, improved data on deposits and lending and an end to CRA grade inflation, leading to nearly all banks receiving a satisfactory grade.
The proposed NPR is a good start. The proposed regulation will adhere to the CRA’s statutory approach to rectify the redlining experienced by LMI neighborhoods and communities of color by designing tests that focus on numbers of loans, branches and services in LMI and underserved communities. It has the potential to significantly reduce grade inflation in the lending test but should improve the rigor of the other subtests including services and community development. Bolstering the overall rigor of the tests will result in more reinvestment activity in formerly redlined communities.
NCRC has urged the agencies to explicitly consider and rate lending, investing and services to people and communities of color in CRA evaluations. The agencies did not adopt this recommendation but will include data in exams on lending by race and ethnicity. We urge the agencies to use this new exam data analysis to identify banks that significantly lag their peers in lending to people of color and communities of color. For these banks, the agencies must conduct more comprehensive fair lending reviews probing for discrimination.
NCRC and our members advocate for increasing assessment areas or geographical areas on CRA exams to not only include areas with bank branches but also areas with substantial volumes of bank loans or deposits. This enhancement will better equip CRA exams in the future to assess bank performance as many banks have increased their lending and bank services via brokers, the internet and other non-branch channels.[4] The agencies appropriately expanded assessment areas to take into account lending beyond branches but did not consider doing so in case of significant deposit collection beyond branches.
The agencies should improve the rigor of the fair lending reviews that accompany CRA exams to ensure that banks are not discriminating or violating consumer protection laws. The agencies did add the Military Lending Act to the list of statutes considered by the fair lending review but did not add the Americans with Disabilities Act as urged by NCRC. The agencies should conduct more transparent fair lending reviews, including better coordination with the CFPB. Lastly, the agencies indicated that discrimination in all aspects of banking, not just in the provision of credit, will be considered by the fair lending review.
Regulators should also address the gap in CRA coverage for a new breed of digital banks that partner with non-bank fintechs to offer demand deposit FDIC-insured accounts and consumer credit. In a 2020 report, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City identified twelve chartered institutions providing “banking as a service,” each with multiple non-bank fintechs.[5] In some instances, partner banks hold hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of accounts through these relationships.
In spite of that, CRA exams do not consider these activities. Notably, some of these partnerships provide loans at interest rates of more than 36 percent and sometimes as high as 400 percent. The prudential regulators should clarify that when banks partner with non-banks to use their chartered status to hold deposits, then those banks should have deposit-based assessment areas and those assessment areas should be located in the states that hold the largest shares of their deposits. They should also clarify that when chartered institutions partner with non-bank lenders to make loans at rates greater than what is legally permissible under state laws, those institutions should suffer downgrades to their CRA performance evaluations. The NPR did not address this important issue.
Congress should also urge regulators to consider the quality of credit in examinations. Traditionally, CRA has emphasized access to credit above considerations of the suitability of credit. Working from the assumption that credit was a uniform “good” was consistent with lending practices in the marketplace at the time of the last significant rulemaking. However, since that time the proliferation of suboptimal credit has become commonplace. Financial institutions charged consumers $15.5 billion in overdraft fees in 2021.[6] Regulators should empower examiners to penalize banks when evidence exists to show that they have offered unsuitable credit to consumers, if they use their charter to make loans at rates above state interest rate caps, orif a disproportionately high share of their deposit account revenues derive from overdraft and insufficient funds fees. The NPR did not address the affordability and sustainability of credit although the proposed retail service and credit products test could incorporate this type of review.
Congress should act to modernize the CRA to cover the broader financial industry.
CRA must be applied broadly throughout the financial industry to overcome decades of redlining and to narrow widespread wealth and income disparities by stimulating reinvestment into underserved communities.[7] While many agents (public and private sector) have practiced invidious discrimination, the financial industry has had a unique impact on discrimination and disparate treatment over the decades.
In 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Cedric Richardson (D-LA) introduced the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act. Section 203 of the bill called for reforms that would strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act. In addition to updating CRA as applied to banks, the bill would extend CRA to mortgage companies and required an evaluation of their retail lending, community development lending and investments and community development services.[8]
Given the scale of the nation’s equity challenge, banks – with a declining share of the market and the financial assets – cannot be the only financial institutions with an affirmative obligation to serve lower income people and people of color. Examinations are not as difficult for non-banks as some might imagine. Many non-bank activities, such as making loans or offering insurance policies, are amenable to data collection and analysis, including assessing the percentage of LMI customers and communities served. Massachusetts’ CRA exams scrutinize the lending of mortgage companies and credit unions.[9] For several years, private mortgage insurance companies voluntarily and publicly reported data on their insurance activities to the federal government.[10] In addition, a community development test for non-banks would evaluate the types and levels of affordable housing and economic development loans and investments.
Further, bank coverage should itself be strengthened. The American Housing and Economic Mobility Act would combat CRA grade inflation by adding more ratings categories, expand the geographical coverage of CRA exams to include areas where banks lend but do not have branches, require affiliates of banks to be included on CRA exams and improve data collection regarding deposits and community development financing in LMI communities. The bill would apply similar requirements to mortgage companies and would improve the merger application process by mandating banks and other financial companies to submit community benefit plans specifying increases in loans, investments, and services in underserved communities.
Strengthen and Defend Section 1071 of ECOA
NCRC 2022 Advocacy Week Asks
Urge the CFPB to move forward with a strong final small business transparency rule under Section 1071 of Dodd-Frank in 2022.
Oppose bills that would weaken Section 1071 small business loan disclosures. This includes H.R. 6732/ S/4004: The Small Lender Act; H.R. 6739: The Business Loan Privacy Act; and H.R. 6802: The Preventing Racial Profiling in Lending Act.
Background and current status
Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act amends the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) to require financial institutions to collect, maintain, and submit data regarding credit applications by women-owned, minority-owned and small businesses (WBEs, MBEs, and SBEs) to the CFPB. Unlike the home mortgage lending marketplace, there is very little public information about how many WBEs, MBEs, and SBEs apply for loans at financial institutions each year, for example, or how many are denied.
SBEs, WBEs, and MBEs drive economic and job growth. From 2000 to 2018, small businesses created 9.6 million net new jobs while large businesses created 5.2 million, accounting for 64.9% of net new job creation in the period.[11] Women, Black, and Hispanic entrepreneurs represent a larger share of small businesses than ever. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of women-owned businesses increased by 45%, compared to just a 9% increase among all businesses.[12]
Despite their important role, there are major gaps in the data around how SBEs, WBEs, and MBEs access credit. The CFPB’s White Paper on the small business lending market reviewed the lending data made public about Small Business Administration (SBA) programs, by banks pursuant to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and through various voluntary business surveys.[13] It noted substantial gaps in lending information, including:
- Basic information on how many SBEs, WBEs, and MBEs are applying for loans and how many (and which) are being denied
- Information about loan terms and pricing for SBEs, WBEs, and MBEs
- Information about and from non-banks and alternative lenders and products, including online marketplace lenders, credit unions, supplier and equipment financing lenders
A 2008 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the lack of data frustrates regulators’ ability to address significant racial and gender disparities in lending. For example, available research on minority business lending generally indicates that Black business owners are denied loans more often or pay significantly higher interest rates than white business owners with similar risk characteristics.[14]
Push for a strong CFPB regulation on Section 1071 small business loan data.
In October of 2021, the Bureau released its proposed regulations regarding the Section 1071 small business loan data required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank).[15] Section 1071 of Dodd-Frank required lending institutions to report demographic information about applications for small business loans including race, ethnicity, and gender of the business owners. Aspects of the proposal, if adopted, would bring much needed, uniform transparency to the small business credit market by collecting data on applications and lending to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), Women’s Business Enterprises (WBEs), and Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs).
The proposals also include disclosure requirements from most types of lenders active in the small business market, including banks, credit unions, online lenders and others, ensuring that lenders cannot exploit loopholes from coverage. The CFPB also proposed collecting data on loan pricing, number of employees, and years in business to ensure fair access for the smallest businesses and start-ups. All of these provisions should be included in a final rule.
Although a good starting point, the proposed rule needs improvements. The agency proposed to exclude some types of lending such as factoring or personal credit card lending used to finance small businesses. In addition, the agency should reconsider its proposal not to collect and report a loan’s Annual Percentage Rate (APR) or any information on an applicant’s credit score. The banking industry opposed most of the proposal vigorously and sought to exclude many banks from the data disclosure requirements.[16] Community groups filed comments citing the need for the data and experiences of several women- and minority-owned small businesses that experienced denials and other unfair treatment although many of these applicants had been in business for several years. NCRC filed comprehensive comments to the CFPB laying out how to collect these data in December January 2022.[17]
Oppose bills that would weaken Section 1071.
Three pending bills pose a threat to Section 1071’s important requirements. Congress and regulators should seek to strengthen, not weaken, fair lending oversight – including small business lending data collection. We ask Congress to oppose the following bills. Additional detail can be found in NCRC’s Fact Sheet: Three Bills Would Significantly Weaken Section 1071 Small Business Loan Disclosures (February 2022).[18]
H.R. 6732/S/4004: The Small Lender Act: The bill would dramatically reduce the number of lending institutions that would report Section 1071 data, gutting its statutory purposes. In its proposed rule, the CFPB required lenders making more than 25 loans annually to report data. H.R. 6732/S.4004 would raise this threshold to 500 annual loans that would need to be exceeded over two consecutive years.[19] Bank trade associations supportive of Rep. French Hill’s bill (AR-02) claim that it will significantly reduce data collection costs for smaller lenders, but in fact cost savings are minimal. Under this law, only a small minority of lenders would report data: The CFPB estimated that 70% of banks and savings and loans would be covered under the 25-loan threshold. This bill would drop coverage to less than one third of banks.[20] The resulting data would no longer enable the CFPB or the public to effectively monitor the fair lending performance of most banks, which directly frustrates the statutory purpose of Section 1071. In addition, assessing whether community needs are being met by lenders, which is the other major purpose of the law, would be thwarted in smaller cities and rural areas where these smaller loan volume banks are disproportionately located and have a significant market presence.
H.R. 6739: The Business Loan Privacy Act: Section 1071 requires the CFPB to assess privacy risk — the possibility that the data could inadvertently identify a particular small business applicant — and modify the data accordingly before public release. This bill would require the CFPB to propose a rule and ask for public comment on its privacy protection procedures. Yet the CFPB has already asked for comment on privacy issues. Further, privacy risks are minimal, and the CFPB concluded that Section 1071 data would be very similar to HMDA data and would not pose a privacy risk.[21] Public sector datasets that advance a fair lending purpose have not led to identities being revealed.
H.R.6802: The Preventing Racial Profiling in Lending Act: Sponsored by Rep. Roger Williams (TX-25), this bill would prevent lenders from guessing upon visual observation the race or ethnicity of small business applicants in cases in which the applicants decline to provide this information.[22] However, visual observation has been part of the HMDA regulation for decades.[23] It serves to provide more data on the race and ethnicity of the loan applicant, for purposes of fair lending tracking and oversight.
Appropriations: Increase support for community investments, including affordable housing
NCRC 2022 Advocacy Week Asks
Provide high levels of funding for much-needed community investments such as housing (affordable rental housing and expanded homeownership opportunities), equitable infrastructure (which offers important economic benefits, including fair participation in the green economy) and small business support, as well as counseling and civil rights enforcement resources.
For specific programmatic asks with proposed appropriation levels, please see NCRC’s FY2023 budget chart at the end of this document.
Background and Specific Funding Asks
In March of this year President Biden unveiled his fiscal year 2023 budget proposal.[24] The budget includes funding to support a range of important federal programs and agency activities, including ongoing or new funding for community investments such as affordable housing, climate adaptation and energy modernization, small business and workforce supports, fair housing and other civil rights enforcement, counseling and others. Over the course of the next few months, Congress will hold hearings to review the proposed funding levels and policy changes before the fiscal year ends on September 30th.
The FY23 proposal includes increases across all agencies. The Department of Housing and Urban Development would receive a 20% increase from the FY21 enacted budget. $1.6 trillion was included for discretionary funding through appropriations. Estimates from the Administration state that the deficit would be nearly $1.2 trillion for FY23 and incrementally increase to $1.8 trillion.
Budget asks of note to NCRC and its members include the following four key funding areas. Specific proposed amounts for our highlighted areas are noted in the attached chart.
Affordable Housing and Expanded Homeownership (including Counseling)
The budget proposes funding that would continue and expand support for affordable housing creation and preservation, rental assistance, and broader homeownership. (Notably, additional housing funding is also the subject of separate ongoing advocacy efforts around the Budget Reconciliation process and Build Back Better Act, which failed to pass the Senate at the end of 2021.) This funding is much needed to meet housing needs across the country, including among renters, who face significant levels of housing cost burden and housing instability. Expanded support for affordable homeownership opportunities, including through downpayment assistance and counseling, is critical, especially given the persistent racial gap in homeownership. [25]
Highlights of the proposed budget and areas of NCRC focus include:
- Affordable housing resources: The budget increases funding for a number of critically-needed affordable housing programs. This includes the HOME Investments Partnership Program, which goes to states and localities to create and preserve affordable rental housing and affordable homeownership (NCRC Ask: $1.95 billion); USDA Multifamily Housing funds to address rent burdens and support energy efficiency standards (largely flowing to rural areas); $50 billion in grants, loans, and tax credit funding for a Supply Fund; and funding to provide housing and improve conditions in Tribal areas.
- Tenant-based rental assistance (Housing Choice Vouchers): The budget increases funding to subsidize low-income households renting in the private market.
- Counseling: The budget includes funding for HUD’s counseling program (NCRC Ask: $100 Million).
- Clean energy transitions and funding to help aid energy costs: The budget includes funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Advantage with a pilot to retrofit low-income homes with efficient electric appliances and systems, and funding for weatherization and energy modernization for HUD and USDA housing.
Enforcement: Fair Housing, Civil Rights, and Other Enforcement
Enforcement capacity, including qualified federal agency staff and grants to local enforcement groups, is critical to ensure that nondiscrimination law works as intended, protects communities and individuals and advances equality in the housing market and other aspects of our economy. Increased funding for fair housing and other civil rights enforcement programs is severely needed. The proposed budget includes funding for the following enforcement needs, which are NCRC priorities:
- Grants for fair housing organizations ($86 million proposed) and for HUD staff capacity on fair housing
- Funding to launch an Office of Environmental Justice at the US Department of Justice, and additional funding to support environmental justice work by the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD); EPA funding for increased enforcement and oversight
- Increase in anti-trust enforcement resources for DOJ
Small Business, Jobs, and Workforce Supports
According to the Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey, firms owned by people of color faced significant financial stress in 2020 and, despite creditworthiness, were also less likely to have their financing needs met.[26] Further, the average White family had seven times the wealth of a Black family and five times the wealth of a Hispanic family by 2016, a disparity that has persisted since 1963.[27] The causes of this are complex (rooted in many decades of systemic discrimination) and the solutions multifold (also including the homeownership supports noted above), but economic growth and targeted access to capital is a core need. Support for small business growth is also fundamental to sustaining vibrant communities, especially given the impacts of the pandemic. The proposed budget includes the following program areas, which are NCRC priorities:
- Increase in funding for the CDFI Fund of $331 million overall (NCRC Ask: $1 billion)), as well as $5 billion for CDFI housing resources, as noted above.
- Small Business Association funding, including increased access to capital via SBA loan guarantee programs and support for entrepreneurs through the SBA’s Entrepreneurial Development programs.
- Childcare resources, including Child and Development Funding and Headstart (Health and Human Services); funding for the Minority Business Development Agency, which serves minority-owned enterprises (Department of Commerce); and U.S. Department of Transportation funding to guide DOT programs toward advancing racial equity, including “workforce development, disadvantaged business enterprise procurement, data collection, reporting, public participation, and assistance measures mitigating or negating the effects of structural obstacles to building wealth.”
Additional Community Development and Investment Resources
Communities that did not traditionally benefit from public and private investments – in particular communities of color – should be an economic priority as we seek to build a more equitable future. Federal spending should provide significant resources to aid in community development and targeted infrastructure improvements (which in turn provide the fabric that sustains economic growth and stability). In early 2021, the Biden Administration stated a commitment to devote 40 percent of climate response and energy modernization resources to disadvantaged communities (the Justice40 Initiative). Equitable access to such investments and to participation in the emerging green economy will be important to helping all communities thrive. The proposed budget includes funding for the following programs, which are NCRC priorities:
- Community Development Block Grants (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development): targeted increase of $195 million to “spur equitable development and the removal of barriers to revitalization.” (NCRC Ask: $4.2 billion)
- USDA programs to improve and expand infrastructure, such as High Cost Energy grants, Rural Energy for America grants and loan guarantees, Urban Agriculture and Water and Wastewater direct loans; clean energy transition funding for rural communities; and broadband expansion.
- Clean energy infrastructure, such as support for clean energy workforce and infrastructure projects, including $502 million to weatherize and retrofit low-income homes; and capacity building to bring new resources to “energy communities” (DOE).
Attached is NCRC’s FY2023 budget chart which highlights specific programs that NCRC is tracking. Our appropriations asks are calculated by taking the highest proposed appropriation from congressional reports, past presidential budget requests, or developed in consultation with NCRC members/allies.
Key:
(a) “NCRC Ask” calculated by taking the highest proposed appropriation from congressional reports, past presidential budget requests, or developed in consultation with NCRC members/allies.
(b) Unclear proposal. Exact amount will appear in FY23 appropriations bills.
(c) Indicates that there is no request for this program in the budget, but does not mean that the program was proposed to be eliminated.
[1] NCRC (2021, July 28). 2021 Policy Agenda for the 117th session of Congress. NCRC. Retrieved April 20, 2022, from https://ncrc.org/2021-policy-agenda-for-the-117th-session-of-congress/
[2] See S.1368 – American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1368/text#toc-idD7EC3B4975B74D01A2A28F4E7FAEAFD0
[3] See https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/files/cra-npr-fr-notice-20220505.pdf
[4] See NCRC comments on the Federal Reserve’s ANPR, https://ncrc.org/ncrc-comment-on-federal-reserve-boards-advance-notice-of-proposed-rulemaking-regarding-the-community-reinvestment-act-february-2021/
[5] Terri Bradford. (2020). Neobanks: Banks by Any Other Name? (Payments) [Payment Systems Research Briefing]. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/payments-system-research-briefings/neobanks-banks-any-other-name/
[6] Borné, R., & Zirkle, A. (2022, February 10). Comparing overdraft fees and policies across banks. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/comparing-overdraft-fees-and-policies-across-banks/
[7] Josh Silver, “Why the Community Reinvestment Act Should Be Expanded Broadly across the Financial Industry,” NCRC, August 17, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.ncrc.org/why-the-community-reinvestment-act-should-be-expanded-broadly-across-the- financial-industry/.
[8] American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2019, H.R. 1737, 116th Cong. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.congress. gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1737.
[9] Josh Silver, Massachusetts CRA For Mortgage Companies: A Good Starting Point For Federal Policy, NCRC, July 2021, https://ncrc.org/massachusetts-cra-for-mortgage-companies-a-good-starting-point-for-federal-policy/
[10] Josh Silver, “Expanding CRA to Non-Bank Lenders and Insurance Companies,” August 27, 2020. Retrieved from https://www. ncrc.org/expanding-cra-to-non-bank-lenders-and-insurance-companies/.
[11] U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, “Frequently Asked Questions about Small Business, 2019,” August 2019. Retrieved from https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/24153946/Frequently-Asked-Questions-Small- Business-2019-1.pdf.
[12] American Express OPEN, “The 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report: A Summary of Important Trends, 2007-2016,” 2016. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee2f53e4b08ae50e0b57a4/t/574f0fd64d088e84c52496de/14647 99202454/2016SWOB.pdf.
[13] CFPB, “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Releases Report on Implementing the Dodd-Frank Act’s Small Business Lending Data Collection Requirement,” press release, December 15, 2020, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/ consumer-financial-protection-bureau-releases-report-on-implementing-the-dodd-frank-acts-small-business-lending-data- collection-requirement/.
[14] U. S. Government Accountability Office, “Fair Lending: Race and Gender Data Are Limited for Nonmortgage Lending,” July 17, 2008. Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-08-1023t.
[15] Federal Register. “Small Business Lending Data Collection Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act Regulation B“ https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/08/2021-19274/small-business-lending-data-collection-under-the-equal-credit-opportunity-act-regulation-b
[16] Josh Silver, Will Section 1071 Data Reporting Boost Lending To Underserved Small Businesses Or Lead To Consolidation And Reduce Product Choice?, NCRC, February 2022, https://www.ncrc.org/will-section-1071-data-reporting-boost-lending-to-underserved-small-businesses-or-lead-to-consolidation-and-reduce-product-choice/
[17] NCRC Comment On Proposed Section 1071 Small Business Lending Data Collection, January 2022, https://ncrc.org/ncrc-comment-on-proposed-section-1071-small-business-lending-data-collection/
[18] NCRC Fact Sheet, Three Bills Would Significantly Weaken Section 1071 Small Business Loan Disclosures (Feb. 24, 2022): https://ncrc.org/ncrc-fact-sheet-three-bills-would-significantly-weaken-section-1071-small-business-loan-disclosures.
[19] Press Release: Reps. Hill, Luetkemeyer, and Williams introduce bill to Protect Small Banks and Lenders, https://hill.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=8895
[20] The CFPB estimated that a 100 loan threshold would result in about one third of banks reporting. Estimates were not provided for a 500 loan threshold. The public cannot readily estimate the impact of this dramatic proposal due to a lack of publicly available data, see CFPB Proposes Rule to Shine New Light on Small Businesses’ Access to Credit, Proposal Would Increase Transparency in a $2.4 Trillion Sector of the American Economy and Bolster Fair Lending, September 1, 2021, p. 239, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_section-1071_nprm_2021-09.pdf
[21] CFPB proposed rule, pp. 607-609.
[22] Independent Community Bankers of America letter to Congress, February 2022, https://www.icba.org/docs/default-source/icba/advocacy-documents/letters-to-congress/letter-supporting-bills-to-modify-section-1071-proposal
[23] CFPB, Collection and Reporting of HMDA Information about Ethnicity and Race, January 2017, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_hmda_ethnicity-and-race-collection_v2.pdf
[24] https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
[25] Stegman, M., & Loftin, M. (2021, April). An essential role for Down Payment – Urban Institute. Urban Institute. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/104134/an-essential-role-for-down-payment-assistance-in-closing-americas-racial-homeownership-and-wealth-gaps_0.pdf
[26] https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/medialibrary/FedSmallBusiness/files/2021/sbcs-report-on-firms-owned-by-people-of-color
[27] Urban Institute, “Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America (Updated),” Features, October 5, 2017. Retrieved from http:// urbn.is/wealthcharts
