The Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus Final Section 1071 Rule on Small Business Data Collection: What You Need to Know, Part I

Published: June 1, 2023, 1:01 p.m.

b'

At the end of March 2023, the CFPB issued its long-awaited final rule to implement Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Section 1071 amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to require financial institutions to collect and report certain data in connection with credit applications made by small businesses, including women- or minority-owned small businesses. Although the final rule will be effective on August 29, 2023, it contains a tiered compliance date schedule, with an earliest compliance date of October 1, 2024 for financial institutions that originate the most covered credit transactions and later compliance dates for institutions with lower transaction volumes.

In Part I of this two-part episode, we first take a close look at the final rule\\u2019s key definitions, specifically those for \\u201ccovered application,\\u201d \\u201ccovered financial institution,\\u201d \\u201ccovered credit transaction,\\u201d and \\u201csmall business.\\u201d We then discuss the data points that must be collected about the credit applied for, the borrower, and the borrower\\u2019s principal owners and consider how the data points are similar to or different from the data points required to be collected pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. We conclude with a discussion of the rule\\u2019s provisions regarding procedures for the collection of data, such as the restrictions on employee and officer access to data.

Alan Kaplinsky, Senior Counsel in Ballard Spahr\\u2019s Consumer Financial Services Group, leads the conversation, joined by John Culhane and Richard Andreano, Partners in the Group.

'