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Innovation and collaboration: Tech sprints support improvements in consumer notifications and data collection and processing

Today, I’m excited to share the team presentations from the Bureau’s first two tech sprints. Our tech sprint program emphasizes a “technology first” approach that asks, across a range of challenges, what role advanced technology can play to strengthen compliance, encourage innovation, drive down cost and burden, and promote transparency.

The tech sprint model recognizes that the Bureau cannot do this work alone. To help, our tech sprints gather those who have a stake in the outcome—whether it’s community groups, technologists, financial institutions, fintechs, and others—to work with regulators to imagine, develop, and “hack” new solutions. When we bring together a diverse group of perspectives and expertise, we are creating an open forum where ideas can be exchanged across an issue area. Working in collaboration, we can responsibly accelerate innovation across financial markets, while delivering real benefits.

Our focus is consumers. In particular, how we can better equip them to make more informed decisions, and how data can reveal the truth about what’s happening, guide our efforts to make things right, and create more fair and equitable markets.

Our first tech sprint on Adverse Action Notices (AANs) took place on October 5-9, 2020 and aimed to improve disclosures to empower consumers to make better informed financial decisions. In the sprint, we asked participants to develop innovations in the way lenders notify consumers of adverse credit actions. Check out some exciting possibilities among the AAN presentations.

Our second sprint on the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) was held on March 22-26, 2021, and it sought to advance the submission and publication of mortgage data to better drive meaningful action. We challenged participants to work with us to continue to innovate around how the Bureau receives and processes HMDA data and how we make more accessible the data to increase market transparency and drive better decision making, especially around issues of equity and inclusion. I firmly believe that equity and inclusion are data-driven enterprises. View the solutions proposed by the HMDA teams.

There will be more tech sprints in the future, and I want to invite anyone with an interest in this work to join us in this journey! I welcome your feedback, ideas, and participation. Sign up to stay informed.

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