CFPB Publishes ECOA Baseline Review Modules

CFPB Examination Fair Lending ECOA

Yesterday afternoon, the CFPB released its ECOA baseline review modules, which supplement the recently updated ECOA examination procedures. Completed baseline modules will be included in an institution’s examination work papers and may be considered in conjunction with any fair lending statistical analysis to assess an institution’s fair lending compliance and risks.

The baseline review procedures provide examiners with a series of questions in six modules to assess the following:

1. Fair lending supervisory history;
2. Fair lending compliance management system – management participation, policies and procedures, training, and internal controls and monitoring;
3. Mortgage lending - policies and procedures for mortgage underwriting and pricing, including frequency of deviations, compensation structures, third-party involvement, and marketing practices;
4. Mortgage servicing - policies and procedures  as they relate to fair lending;
5. Auto lending – policies and procedures for direct and indirect auto lending, including information related to pricing, underwriting, referrals, origination, and third-party compensation; and
6. Other products – policies and procedures with respect to any additional products selected for review, e.g. secured and unsecured consumer lending, credit cards, add-on products, private student lending, payday lending, and small business lending.

The CFPB baseline review differs from the CFPB’s targeted review process, during which a supervised institution can be subject to an in-depth look at a specific area of fair lending risk, and is separate from the CFPB’s HMDA review, which includes transactional testing for HMDA data accuracy.