Protecting consumers through a pandemic: 2020 Fair Lending Report to Congress

The month of April marks Fair Lending Month, Fair Housing Month, and Financial Capability Month. In recognition of this, today the Bureau released its annual Fair Lending Report to Congress. The report highlights our work in 2020 to promote the Bureau's fair lending mission of ensuring fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit while also protecting consumers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic consequences. As the report explains, in 2020:

• Our supervision program conducted prioritized assessments to gain a greater understanding of industry responses to pandemic-related challenges.
• We announced two public enforcement actions involving fair lending laws.
• We issued an interpretive rule related to special purpose credit programs.
• We hosted a Tech Sprint, bringing together stakeholders to develop creative and innovative solutions to compliance challenges, enabling us to better understand the complex intersection of emerging technologies and existing fair lending laws.
• We engaged with stakeholders in more than 90 outreach events to: (1) educate them about fair lending compliance and access to credit issues and (2) hear their views on the Bureau’s work to inform the Bureau’s policy decisions.

As reflected in this report, in 2020 the Bureau continued to advance our fair lending mission and expand credit access to consumers through enforcing the law and collaboration with consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, industry, academia, and other government agencies.

In 2021 and beyond, the Bureau will place greater emphasis on fair lending and efforts to address racial equity for underserved communities, and will report on those efforts in 2022. In the meantime, learn more about how the law protects you against credit discrimination.