Fair Lending
What a Fair Lending Exam Actually Asks For
A fair lending examination is more predictable than it feels, because the procedure examiners follow is published. The Interagency Fair Lending Examination Procedures set out how scope is decided, what documents get requested, how a focal point is chosen, how files are compared, and what an institution's explanation has to establish to resolve a finding. If you know that sequence, you can assemble most of what will be asked for before it is asked for. This article walks the sequence in order. It is the counterpart to our guide to running a self-assessment, which covers testing yourself. This one covers what happens when someone else does the testing. The document, and which agencies use it The procedures were issued in August 2009 by the OCC, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve Board, the…
Fair Servicing: What Examiners Test in Servicing Data, and How to Test It First
Fair lending examination does not stop at the credit decision. A servicer that grants a forbearance to one borrower and denies it to a similarly situated borrower on a prohibited basis has a fair lending problem, even though no application was declined and nothing about it will ever appear on a HMDA loan application register. The CFPB instructs its examiners to test for precisely this. The data they need to do it does not live in your LAR. This article covers what those servicing decisions are, why origination-side testing cannot see them, and how the statistical methodology used on application data transfers to servicing data. It is also specific about where that methodology stops transferring cleanly, because that is the part most treatments of this topic skip. What fair servicing…
Fair Lending Self-Assessment: A Step-by-Step Guide for 2026
Updated October 20, 2026: new section on the CFPB's 2025 fair lending report. Fair lending compliance is not only about passing your next exam. It is about being able to show that your institution treats every applicant consistently, and being able to show it with evidence you generated yourself rather than evidence an examiner generated for you. A thorough self-assessment identifies potential issues before examiners do, demonstrates proactive risk management, and protects the institution from enforcement actions that begin as findings nobody looked for. This guide walks through a comprehensive fair lending self-assessment using the framework examiners at the OCC, FDIC, Federal Reserve and NCUA share: the Interagency Fair Lending Examination Procedures (IFLEP), which the CFPB also…
CFPB takes action against Nationstar Mortgage for flawed mortgage loan reporting
Bureau's $1.75 Million Civil Penalty for Persistent and Substantial Reporting Errors is the CFPB's Largest Penalty to Date for HMDA Violations WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today ordered Nationstar Mortgage LLC to pay a $1.75 million civil penalty for violating the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) by consistently failing to report accurate data about mortgage transactions for 2012 through 2014. Today's action is the largest HMDA civil penalty imposed by the Bureau to date, which stems from Nationstar's market size, the substantial magnitude of its errors, and its history of previous violations. In fact, Nationstar had been on notice since 2011 of HMDA compliance problems. In addition to paying the civil penalty, Nationstar must take the…
CFPB Takes Action Against Fifth Third Bank for Auto-Lending Discrimination and Illegal Credit Card Practices
Company to Pay $18 Million to Minority Auto Borrowers, $3 Million to Credit Card Customers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced two separate actions against Fifth Third Bank, for discriminatory auto loan pricing and for illegal credit card practices. The joint CFPB and Department of Justice (DOJ) auto-lending enforcement action requires Fifth Third to change its pricing and compensation system to minimize the risks of discrimination, and to pay $18 million to harmed African-American and Hispanic borrowers. The CFPB's action against Fifth Third's deceptive marketing of credit card add-on products requires the bank to provide an estimated $3 million in relief to eligible harmed consumers and pay a $500,000 penalty.
| Institution | Regulator(s) | Violation | Penalty | Period covered | HMDA/fair-lending data field involved |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fifth Third Bank | CFPB, DOJ | Discriminatory auto loan pricing — violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by charging African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher dealer markups than non-Hispanic white borrowers, without regard to creditworthiness | $18 million to harmed African-American and Hispanic borrowers ($12 million into a settlement fund, plus credit of $5–$6 million for remediation already provided, with any additional funds paid in to reach $18 million total); no penalty assessed for this action | January 2010 through September 2015 | Dealer markup on auto loan interest rate (race and national origin) |
| Fifth Third Bank | CFPB | Deceptive marketing and sales of "Debt Protection" credit card add-on product, in violation of the Dodd-Frank Act | $3 million in relief to roughly 24,500 customers, plus a $500,000 penalty to the CFPB civil penalty fund | 2007 through February 2013 (fulfillment kit misrepresentations from December 2011 through September 2012) | — |
- 2025 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Small Business, Small Farm and Community Development Lending Data: What Changed and What to Do Next
- The CFPB's Semiannual Report: What Narrower Federal Enforcement Means for Fair Lending, HMDA and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Programs
- How to Choose Section 1071 Software: What to Test Before Your First Filing
- The Regulation B Lawsuits: What Your Fair Lending Program Should Keep Doing While the Rule Is in Court
- California's New Fair Lending Exam Law: What State-Chartered Banks, Credit Unions and Mortgage Licensees Should Have Ready
- November 2026
- October 2026
- September 2026
- August 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- 2025
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
- 2017
- HMDA vs CRA vs Section 1071: What Each Rule Collects and Who Has to File
- 2026 HMDA Data: Your Filing Checklist for the March 1, 2027 Deadline
- HMDA Plus: What It Actually Changed in the LAR Workflow
- Fair Lending Regression Analysis: What It Controls For and How to Explain a Pricing Disparity
- How to Evaluate Fair Lending and CRA Software: What to Test Before You Sign
- Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Reach Settlement with Hudson City Savings Bank to Resolve Allegations of Mortgage Lending
- What Actually Counts as a Small Business Loan Under Section 1071
- Section 1071 in 2026: What Lenders Need to Know About Small Business Lending Data
- How to Benchmark Your CRA and HMDA Lending Against Peer Data
- Special Report: Geocoding - Achieving the Highest Accuracy
