CFPB expects proposal on small biz data collection
(June 18, 2021) Collection, reporting, and public disclosure of data concerning credit applications made by women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses will be the subject of a proposed rule by the CFPB later this summer, according to the agency’s spring 2021 agenda, published late last week.
This proposal and others to come are reviewed in a blog post by the bureau published on the agency’s website about its regulatory agenda, which is part of the “unified agenda” of rules across federal agencies and departments (including NCUA).
The small-business data proposal is planned for release in September, according to the agenda, and follows the outline of proposals issued about a year ago and a stakeholder panel report in December. The proposed rule would implement a section 1071 requirement in the Dodd-Frank Act requirement.
The blog post also hints that the bureau’s permanent director (nominee Rohit Chopra, who now sits on of the Federal Trade Commission) will be confirmed by the Senate in the coming months; it states that the permanent director’s changes to the current agenda will be reflected in the fall 2021 agenda.
Other rules ahead for the CFPB, according to the regulatory agenda, include:
- action on rulemaking over availability of consumer financial account data (the bureau is considering comments it has already received and assessing “next steps”).
- A final rule intended to facilitate the transition away from the LIBOR reference rate, which becomes defunct for new contracts in January. The bureau said it intends to release its final rule that same month. “Our work is designed to lessen the financial impact to consumers and facilitate creditor compliance by providing examples of replacement indices that meet Regulation Z requirements,” the bureau wrote in the blog post.
- Assessments of a rule implementing HMDA, which became effective in 2018. The bureau noted that, considering other rulemaking priorities, it is no longer pursuing two HMDA rulemakings that were listed in the proposed rule stage in previous agendas – one addressing the data points that lenders must report and another related to the public disclosure of HMDA data.