FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2026
CONTACT: Jarice Thompson,jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
AFR Statement Decrying the Trump CFPB Gutting of the Farm and Small Business Fair Lending Disclosure Rule:
Statement of Patrick Woodall, managing director at Americans for Financial Reform on roll-back of CFPB 1071 farm and small business fair lending rule
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule that will delay and severely undermine the farm and small business fair lending disclosure rule that will let unfair and discriminatory lending practices persist for years. The Dodd-Frank amendment to the Equal Credit Protection Act required the disclosure of farm and small business lending data to identify farm and small business credit needs, gaps in credit access, and identify patterns of lending discrimination. This commonsense disclosure rule has already languished for more than 15 years since passed by Congress and it is unnecessary and immoral to further delay and weaken this critical civil rights enforcement tool.
The rule now totally excludes farm lending, despite the well-documented lending biases against Black, Latine, Indigenous, and women farmers. The rule exempts all lenders that make fewer than an average of 1,000 small business loans annually, severely reducing the number of lenders covered and the quality of the data collected. The rule was based on the highly successful 1975 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which began to be implemented within five years of enactment. Sixteen years after Dodd-Frank not a single piece of farm or small business lending data has been collected and now it is being delayed and watered down even more.
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