September 2014 – Consumer Financial Services Watch

2013 HMDA Data is Now Available; Mortgage Lenders Should Consider Evaluating Redlining Risk

Sep 25 2014

By: Melanie Brody, Anjali Garg*
*Ms. Garg is not admitted in D.C. She is supervised by Stephanie Robinson, a member of the D.C. Bar.

It has been a busy week in the fair lending space. Last week, the CFPB issued a white paper describing its proxying methodology for imputing race and ethnicity when analyzing fair lending compliance on non-mortgage credit products along with a proposed rule to oversee nonbank auto finance companies. This week, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council released the 2013 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (“HMDA”) data, and the Federal Reserve released its own analysis of the data.

K&L Gates Live Webcast: Telemarketing and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act—Avoiding Traps and Minimizing Risk

Sep 23 2014

Join us for this upcoming live video webcast on Thursday, October 2nd, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (ET).

The program will include an in-depth discussion, followed by a lively Q&A session on a variety of issues involving the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Our knowledgeable panel will cover a range is issues, including:

Restrictions on texting and other types of communications
Issues around “Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems”
“Prior Express Consent” and revocation
Damages and standards for finding knowing and willful violations
Defense of class certification
Compliance and telemarketing issues
Insurance coverage
Other emerging issues

CFPB Proposes New Rule to Oversee Nonbank Auto Finance Companies

Sep 19 2014

By: Melanie Brody, Anjali Garg*
*Ms. Garg is not admitted in D.C. She is supervised by Stephanie Robinson, a member of the D.C. Bar.

The CFPB proposed a new rule on September 17, 2014, that would enable the Bureau to oversee nonbank auto finance companies. With the proposal, the CFPB takes another step toward expanding its supervisory authority over nonbanks. The Bureau released the proposed rule along with a report on recent examinations of bank auto lending activities and a white paper describing its proxying methodology for imputing race and ethnicity when analyzing fair lending compliance on non-mortgage credit products.

Big Data takes a Big Step: CFPB Offers Insight into Its Fair Lending Proxy Methodology

Sep 18 2014

By: Melanie Brody, Anjali Garg*
*Ms. Garg is not admitted in D.C. She is supervised by Stephanie Robinson, a member of the D.C. Bar.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires residential mortgage lenders to collect race and ethnicity information about loan applicants, and lenders, regulators and others routinely use this information to statistically evaluate whether there is a risk that a lender has discriminated against borrowers on a prohibited basis. With regard to other types of credit, with respect to which federal law generally prohibits the collection of demographic information, lenders and other interested parties must impute credit applicants’ race and ethnicity using proxies. For example, a lender could use the racial composition of the census tract in which a consumer resides to assign an assumed race to the consumer. Although proxying provides a way to evaluate fair lending risk in the absence of actual demographic data, there historically has not been a generally-accepted methodology for performing the proxy process, and this has made it particularly challenging to evaluate fair lending compliance for non-mortgage credit products.

Archive:September 2014