Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)

Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) was enacted to ensure that credit is made available to all creditworthy applicants without discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status, race, color, religion, national origin, age, or other prohibited bases under the ECOA. The ECOA allows for creditors to collect information for self-testing against these criteria, while not allowing creditors to use this information in making credit decisions of applicants. For certain mortgage applications, the ECOA requires creditors to ask for some of the prohibited information for monitoring purposes. In addition, for certain mortgage applications, creditors are required to send a copy of any appraisal or written valuation used in the application process to the applicant in a timely fashion. In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act. Section 1071 of that Act amended ECOA 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 specifies a number of data points that financial institutions are required to collect and report, and also provides authority for the CFPB to require any additional data that the CFPB determines would aid in fulfilling section 1071’s statutory purposes. Section 1071 also contains a number of other requirements, including those that address restricting the access of underwriters and other persons to certain data; recordkeeping; and publication of small business lending data. In addition, section 1071 permits the CFPB to modify or delete data prior to publication if it determines that such a deletion or modification would advance a privacy interest. ECOA also prescribes that creditors inform applicants of decisions made on credit applications. In particular, where creditors make adverse actions on credit applications or existing accounts, creditors must inform consumers as to why the adverse action was taken, such that credit applicants can challenge errors or learn how to become more creditworthy. Creditors must retain all application information for 25 months, including notices they sent and any information related to adverse actions. ECOA requires creditors who furnish applicant information to a consumer reporting agency to reflect participation of the applicant’s spouse, if the spouse if permitted to use or contractually liable on the account.

The latest form for Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B) expires 2026-08-31 and can be found here.

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Federal Enterprise Architecture: Economic Development - Financial Sector Oversight