FTC Staff Provides Annual Letter to CFPB On Equal Credit Opportunity Act Activities

The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has provided the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) with an annual summary of its activities enforcing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).

The FTC is responsible for ECOA enforcement and education regarding most non-bank financial service providers. In its summary, FTC staff describes the Commission’s work on ECOA-related issues, including activities addressed in research and policy development such as:

• the 12th session of the agency’s Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century, which included discussion of the use of big data in automated decision making and how ECOA should inform the use of data collected from consumers;
• the 14th session of the agency’s Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century, where a roundtable of state enforcers discussed the impact of big data and algorithms on equal access to credit;
• the agency’s Strictly Business forum, which included discussion of ECOA’s applicability to small business financing;
• the agency’s Accuracy in Consumer Reporting workshop, which included discussion of ECOA, making credit decisions based on fairness, and avoiding using a prohibited basis;
• the continued work of the agency’s Military Task Force, and FTC initiatives to assist military consumers; and
• the FTC’s participation as a member of the Interagency Task Force on Fair Lending, a joint undertaking with the CFPB, the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the federal banking regulatory agencies.
  

The summary also outlines the Commission’s business and consumer education efforts on fair lending issues.

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