Credit Discrimination: § 1691 note. Short title
This title may be cited as the “Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” [Pub. L. No. 93-495, § 501, 88 Stat. 1525 (1974)]
This title may be cited as the “Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” [Pub. L. No. 93-495, § 501, 88 Stat. 1525 (1974)]
The Congress finds that there is a need to insure that the various financial institutions and other firms engaged in the extensions of credit exercise their responsibility to make credit available with fairness, impartiality, and without discrimination on the basis of sex or marital status.
(a) Activities constituting discrimination
It shall be unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction—
(1) on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract);
(2) because all or part of the applicant’s income derives from any public assistance program; or
(a) The definitions and rules of construction set forth in this section are applicable for the purpose of this subchapter.
(b) The term “applicant” means any person who applies to a creditor directly for an extension, renewal, or continuation of credit, or applies to a creditor indirectly by use of an existing credit plan for an amount exceeding a previously established credit limit.
(c) The term “Bureau” means the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
(a) The Bureau shall prescribe regulations to carry out the purposes of this subchapter. These regulations may contain but are not limited to such classifications, differentiation, or other provision, and may provide for such adjustments and exceptions for any class of transactions, as in the judgment of the Bureau are necessary or proper to effectuate the purposes of this subchapter, to prevent circumvention or evasion thereof, or to facilitate or substantiate compliance therewith.
(a) Enforcing agencies
Subject to subtitle B of the Consumer Protection Financial Protection Act of 2010 with the requirements imposed under this subchapter shall be enforced under:
(1) Section 8 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, by the appropriate Federal banking agency, as defined in section 3(q) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813(q)), with respect to—
(a) Privileged information
(1) Conditions for privilege
A report or result of a self-test (as that term is defined by regulations of the Bureau) shall be considered to be privileged under paragraph (2) if a creditor—
(a) Purpose
The purpose of this section is to facilitate enforcement of fair lending laws and enable communities, governmental entities, and creditors to identify business and community development needs and opportunities of women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses.
(b) Information gathering
(a) Requests for signature of husband and wife for creation of valid lien, etc.
(a) Individual or class action for actual damages
Any creditor who fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter shall be liable to the aggrieved applicant for any actual damages sustained by such applicant acting either in an individual capacity or as a member of a class.
Each year, the Bureau and the Attorney General shall, respectively, make reports to the Congress concerning the administration of their functions under this subchapter, including such recommendations as the Bureau and the Attorney General, respectively, deem necessary or appropriate.
Title 42—The Public Health and Welfare
* * *
Chapter 45—Fair Housing
Subchapter I—Generally
§ 3601. Declaration of policy
§ 3602. Definitions
§ 3603. Effective dates of certain prohibitions
§ 3604. Discrimination in the sale or rental of housing and other prohibited practices
§ 3605. Discrimination in residential real estate-related transactions
§ 3606. Discrimination in provision of brokerage services
It is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) now has authority to issue Regulation C and its commentary. See Pub. L. No. 111-203, tit. X, §§ 1085(3), 1100H, 124 Stat. 2083, 2113 (July 21, 2010). On December 19, 2011, the CFPB issued its version of Regulation C and its commentary. See 76 Fed. Reg. 78,468 (Dec. 19, 2011). The major change from the Federal Reserve Board’s (FRB) version is that 12 C.F.R. part 203 citations are replaced by citations to 12 C.F.R. part 1003. Other changes are stylistic and not substantive.
(a) Authority. This part, known as Regulation C, is issued by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) (12 U.S.C. 2801 et seq.), as amended. The information-collection requirements have been approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.
In this part:
(a) Act means the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) (12 U.S.C. 2801 et seq.), as amended.
(b) Application.
(1) In general. Application means an oral or written request for a covered loan that is made in accordance with procedures used by a financial institution for the type of credit requested.
(a) Exemption based on state law.
(1) A state-chartered or state-licensed financial institution is exempt from the requirements of this part if the Bureau determines that the institution is subject to a state disclosure law that contains requirements substantially similar to those imposed by this part and that contains adequate provisions for enforcement.
(a) Data format and itemization. A financial institution shall collect data regarding applications for covered loans that it receives, covered loans that it originates, and covered loans that it purchases for each calendar year. A financial institution shall collect data regarding requests under a preapproval program, as defined in § 1003.2(b)(2), only if the preapproval request is denied, is approved by the financial institution but not accepted by the applicant, or results in the origination of a home purchase loan.
(a) Reporting to agency.
(a) Administrative enforcement. A violation of the Act or this part is subject to administrative sanctions as provided in section 305 of the Act (12 U.S.C. 2804), including the imposition of civil money penalties, where applicable. Compliance is enforced by the agencies listed in section 305 of the Act.
(b) Bona fide errors.
[Editor’s Note: Appendix A to Part 1003 was removed and reserved at 80 Fed. Reg. 66,314 (Oct. 28, 2015), effective Jan. 1, 2019.]
You may list questions regarding the ethnicity, race, and sex of the applicant on your loan application form, or on a separate form that refers to the application. (See the sample data collection form below for model language.)
The check digit for the Universal Loan Identifier (ULI) pursuant to § 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(C) is calculated using the ISO/IEC 7064, MOD 97–10 as it appears on the International Standard ISO/IEC 7064:2003, which is published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
©ISO. This material is reproduced from ISO/IEC 7064:2003 with permission of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) on behalf of ISO. All rights reserved.
Step 1: Starting with the leftmost character in the string that consists of the combination of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) pursuant to § 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(A) and the additional characters identifying the covered loan or application pursuant to § 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(B), replace each alphabetic character with numbers in accordance with Table I below to obtain all numeric values in the string.
The alphabetic characters are not case-sensitive and each letter, whether it is capitalized or in lower-case, is equal to the same value as each letter illustrates in the conversion table. For example, A and a are each equal to 10.
A = 10
B = 11
C = 12
D = 13
E = 14
F = 15
G = 16
H = 17
I = 18