Regulatory News

The FDIC, Federal Reserve and OCC released the 2025 Community Reinvestment Act small business, small farm and community development lending data on November 5, 2026, acting as members of the FFIEC (OCC News Release 2026-98; FDIC press release). The CRA regulations require the agencies to disclose this data every year. Along with the institution-level data, the FFIEC prepared aggregate reports of small business and small farm lending for every MSA and every county. For a CRA reporter, this is the market your 2025 lending will be measured against. Key takeaways The 2025 CRA aggregate and disclosure reports and flat files are now on the FFIEC CRA data products page, covering 1996 through 2025. Reporters originated 8,559,067 small business loans in 2025, about 2% fewer than in 2024, but…

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On October 27, 2026, the CFPB sent Congress its Semi-Annual Report for January through June 2026. The fair lending chapter is short and blunt. The Bureau now pursues "direct evidence of intentional discrimination on a prohibited basis and identified victims," it cited no fair lending violations in the period, and it made no pattern-or-practice referrals to the Department of Justice. This article reads the full report (PDF) for what changed, what did not, and what a fair lending, HMDA or Community Reinvestment Act program should keep doing. Key takeaways The CFPB says it will bring fair lending cases only on intentional discrimination with identified victims, and it will not pursue redlining "based solely on statistical correlation." For banks and credit unions with $10 billion or less…

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Two lawsuits now ask federal judges to throw out the CFPB's April 2026 amendments to Regulation B, the rule that implements the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The amendments drop the "effects test" for disparate impact, narrow what counts as discouraging an applicant, and restrict how for-profit lenders can run special purpose credit programs. They took effect on July 21, 2026, and no court has paused them. This article covers what the rule changed, who sued and what they want, which fair lending obligations the case does not touch, and which monitoring a fair lending program should keep running while it waits. Everything below is read from the final rule, the complaints and the coverage linked in each paragraph. None of it is legal advice, and we make no guess about how either case will…

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California's Fair Lending Examination Act (AB 801, Chapter 871 of 2026) requires the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to examine state-chartered banks and credit unions that meet HMDA's loan-volume test, and every residential mortgage lender and servicer licensee, for compliance with federal and California anti-discrimination law in mortgage lending. Banks and credit unions get an exam at least once every four years. Licensees get it inside their existing exam, which must happen at least every 48 months. Governor Newsom approved the bill on September 30, 2026. It is a non-urgency statute with no operative date of its own, so under Article IV, Section 8(c)(1) of the California Constitution it takes effect on January 1, 2027. Everything below is read from the chaptered…

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HMDA, CRA and Section 1071 are three separate federal reporting regimes. HMDA (Regulation C, 12 CFR part 1003) covers applications for dwelling-secured loans. CRA data reporting covers small business, small farm and community development loans at banks above the small bank size. Section 1071 (Regulation B, subpart B, 12 CFR 1002.101 onward) will cover small business credit applications at lenders that originate at least 1,000 a year for two years running. They overlap more than their names suggest. All three hang on a census tract, two of them ask about demographics, and one loan can look like it belongs on two registers when the rules put it on only one. Below, the three sit side by side. Every threshold and date below comes from the current regulation text or the agency notice that…

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