Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)

CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU <CFR>12 CFR Part 1002</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. CFPB-2025-0040]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 3170-AB40</RIN> <SUBJECT>Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for public comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) proposes revisions to certain provisions of Regulation B, subpart B, implementing changes to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act made by section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Bureau is reconsidering coverage of certain credit transactions and financial institutions; the small business definition; inclusion of certain data points and how others are collected; and the compliance date. The CFPB believes these proposed changes would streamline the rule, reduce complexity for lenders, and improve data quality, advancing the purposes of section 1071 and complying with recent executive directives. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CFPB-2025-0040 or RIN 3170-AB40, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. A brief summary of this document will be available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/CFPB-2025-0040.</E> • <E T="03">Email: 2025-NPRM-1071Reconsideration@cfpb.gov.</E> Include Docket No. CFPB-2025-0040 or RIN 3170-AB40 in the subject line of the message. • <E T="03">Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier:</E> Comment Intake—1071 Reconsideration NPRM, c/o Legal Division Docket Manager, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> The CFPB encourages the early submission of comments. All submissions should include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. Because paper mail is subject to delay, commenters are encouraged to submit comments electronically. In general, all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> All submissions, including attachments and other supporting materials, will become part of the public record and subject to public disclosure. Proprietary information or sensitive personal information, such as account numbers or Social Security numbers, or names of other individuals, should not be included. Submissions will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dave Gettler, Paralegal Specialist, Office of Regulations, at 202-435-7700 or <E T="03">https://reginquiries.consumerfinance.gov/.</E> If you require this document in an alternative electronic format, please contact <E T="03">CFPB_Accessibility@cfpb.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act). Section 1071 of that Act  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> to require that financial institutions collect and report to the CFPB certain data regarding applications for credit for women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses. Section 1071's statutory purposes are to (1) facilitate enforcement of fair lending laws, and (2) enable communities, governmental entities, and creditors to identify business and community development needs and opportunities of women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses. Section 1071 directs the CFPB to prescribe such rules and issue such guidance as may be necessary to carry out, enforce, and compile data pursuant to section 1071. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Public Law 111-203, tit. X, section 1071, 124 Stat. 1376, 2056 (2010), codified at ECOA section 704B, 15 U.S.C. 1691c-2. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  15 U.S.C. 1691 <E T="03">et seq.</E> </FTNT> The CFPB worked toward a section 1071 rulemaking for a number of years and has sought public comment from stakeholders numerous times. The CFPB held a field hearing on May 10, 2017, and published a request for information regarding the small business lending market. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On July 22, 2020, the CFPB issued a survey to collect information about potential one-time costs to financial institutions to prepare to collect and report data on small business lending. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The CFPB received 17 comments in response to the request for information. <E T="03">See</E> CFPB, <E T="03">Requests for Information: Small Business Lending Market,</E> Docket ID CFPB 2017-0011, <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/document/CFPB-2017-0011-0001/comment.</E> </FTNT> On September 15, 2020, the CFPB released an Outline of Proposals Under Consideration and Alternatives Considered pursuant to the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (SBREFA). On October 15, 2020, the CFPB convened a Small Business Review Panel for the section 1071 rulemaking, and the Panel met with small entity representatives (SERs). The Panel Report, publicly released on December 15, 2020, was the culmination of the SBREFA process for the section 1071 rulemaking and included feedback from SERs and written feedback from other stakeholders as well. On October 8, 2021, the CFPB published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a proposed rule (2021 proposed rule) amending Regulation B to implement changes to ECOA made by section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The comment period for the proposed rule closed on January 6, 2022. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  86 FR 56356 (Oct. 8, 2021). </FTNT> The CFPB received approximately 2,100 comments on the proposal during the comment period. Approximately 650 of these comments were unique, detailed comment letters representing diverse interests. These commenters included lenders such as banks and credit unions, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), community development companies, Farm Credit System (FCS) lenders, online lenders, and others; national and regional industry trade associations; software vendors; business advocacy groups; community groups; research, academic, and other advocacy organizations; Members of Congress; Federal and State government offices/agencies; small businesses; and individuals. On May 31, 2023, the CFPB published a final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> to implement section 1071 by adding subpart B to Regulation B (2023 final rule). <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Further details about section 1071, small business lending market dynamics, and the CFPB's rulemaking process leading up to the 2023 final rule can be found in the preamble to the 2023 final rule. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  88 FR 35150 (May 31, 2023). </FTNT> On July 3, 2024, the CFPB published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> an interim final rule (2024 interim final rule) <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> to extend the rule's compliance dates in accordance with orders issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  89 FR 55024 (July 3, 2024). <E T="03">See also</E> Order Granting-in-Part & Denying-in-Part Pls.' Mot. for Prelim. Inj., <E T="03">Texas Bankers Ass'n</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB,</E> No. 7:23-CV-00144 (S.D. Tex. July 31, 2023), <E T="03">https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_pi_order_texas_bankers.pdf;</E> Order Granting Intervenors' Mots. For Prelim. Inj., <E T="03">Texas Bankers Ass'n</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB,</E> No. 7:23-CV-00144 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 26, 2023), <E T="03">https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_pi_second_order_texas_bankers.pdf;</E> Op. & Order, <E T="03">Monticello Banking Co. et al.</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB et al.,</E> No. 6:23-CV-00148-KKC (E.D. Ky. Mar. 11, 2025); Op. & Order, <E T="03">Revenue Based Finance Coalition</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB et al.,</E> No. 1:23-CV-24882-DSL (S.D. Fla. May 6, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">Texas Bankers Ass'n</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB,</E> No. 7:23-CV-00144 (S.D. Tex. July 31, 2023) <E T="03">https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_pi_order_texas_bankers.pdf.</E> </FTNT> Challenges to the 2023 final rule filed by various plaintiffs remain ongoing in three jurisdictions; each of those courts stayed the rule's compliance deadlines for some market participants. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> However, the courts did not stay the compliance dates for those who are not plaintiffs or intervenors in those cases. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Unpublished Order, <E T="03">Texas Bankers Ass'n</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB,</E> No. 24-40705 (5th Cir. Feb. 7, 2025) (tolling the compliance deadlines for plaintiffs and intervenors in that case, until further order of the court); Op. & Order, <E T="03">Monticello Banking Co. et al.</E> v. <E T="03">CFPB et al.,</E> No. 6:23-CV-00148-KKC (E.D. Ky. Mar. 11, 2025) (same). </FTNT> On June 18, 2025, the CFPB published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> an interim final rule (2025 interim final rule) to extend compliance deadlines by approximately one year <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> to facilitate consistent compliance across all covered financial institutions. The CFPB sought comment on the 2025 interim final rule. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  90 FR 25874 (June 18, 2025). </FTNT> On October 2, 2025, the CFPB published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 457k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━