NCRC Comment on Proposed Section 1071 Small Business Lending Data Collection

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Introduction

January 4, 2022

RE: Docket No. CFPB-2021-0015, Section 1071 Small Business Lending Data Collection

To Whom it May Concern:

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) appreciates this opportunity to comment on the proposed rule for reporting and disseminating small business loan data required by Section 1071 of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd Frank Act). NCRC is an association of 600 community-based nonprofit organizations dedicated to increasing access to credit and capital for underserved communities. Our efforts range from advocacy to counseling homebuyers and small business owners. NCRC and our members have viewed data as integral to the mission of increasing access to responsible credit.

Section 1071 requires the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to enhance publicly available small business data to include the race and gender of small businesses applying for credit. Its purpose is to “facilitate enforcement of the fair lending laws and enable communities, government entities, and creditors to identify business and community development needs and opportunities of women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses.”[1]

As users of small business loan data, NCRC and our members believe that data effectuates the purpose of Section 1071 by improving the efficiency and equity of lending markets. Data analysis identifies credit needs and gaps for different types of small businesses and therefore directs attention to further understanding and remedying these gaps. The CFPB’s proposed rule will effectively facilitate community needs and fair lending analysis by requiring comprehensive and robust data. As with any proposed rule, there are areas that could be improved which are discussed below.

Congress has had a longstanding interest in instituting data reporting requirements because increased transparency in lending markets will increase access to credit for underserved populations. Perhaps the seminal fair lending data disclosure law is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) that Congress passed in 1975 and improved via the Dodd Frank Act. Likewise, Congressional interest in small business data disclosure pre-dates the Dodd Frank Act with prior versions of Section 1071 being parts of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) modernization acts.[2] Because of the consistent Congressional attention to data disclosure, the CFPB has appropriately developed a robust rule that faithfully executes Congressional intent and seriousness.

As the CFPB recognizes, “research indicates that minority-owned small businesses face particular obstacles, as do those that are women-owned, but the current lack of comprehensive, quantitative data has made it difficult to understand the extent of these obstacles and address them with responsive policy. By shining a light on lending practices, in this area, the Bureau believes that the 1071 data would not only foster a culture of compliance but bring particular attention to the underserved parts of the small business market that have traditionally faced the greatest obstacles to success. In this way, the proposed rule is intended to help small businesses drive inclusive and equitable growth.”[3]

In this comment NCRC will:

• Describe the rationale for Section 1071 data and how the data must be comprehensive to achieve its purpose of transparency and equity.
• Respond to the wide variety of CFPB questions and discuss the major subject areas of the rule including small business characteristics and loan terms and conditions to be captured by the data.
• Assert that the CFPB’s balancing test regarding privacy and its cost-benefit analysis justify a robust and comprehensive database.
• Maintain that the data must be easily accessible to the public in order to make sure that lending institutions are held accountable.

The public accountability of data motivates increases in lending to underserved businesses

Data is a great motivator for changing behavior. Data illuminates which financial institutions are effectively lending to traditionally underserved small businesses and which institutions lag their peers in serving these small businesses. It therefore motivates some leaders to maintain their lead in the small business lending market and the laggards to improve their performance. Publicly available data stimulates self-improvement efforts but when those efforts are not sufficient, data also enables public agencies to enforce fair lending laws in the cases of lending institutions that engage in discrimination and/or unfair and deceptive lending practices.

The experience of updating the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data illustrates how enhancing the publicly available small business data will boost lending to underserved borrowers. After Congress updated HMDA data in 1989 to require information on the demographics of applicants, lending to minorities climbed in the 1990s before the advent of high-cost and abusive lending. For instance, from 1993 through 1995, conventional (non-government insured) home mortgage lending to African-Americans and Hispanics surged 70 percent and 48 percent, respectively. In contrast, the increase was just 12 percent for whites.^[4]

While public databases are often empowering and hold lenders accountable to increasing lending in underserved communities, their usefulness becomes limited over time if they lack key data on loan pricing and terms and conditions. In the years preceding the financial crisis, unscrupulous institutions dramatically increased their high-cost and abusive lending because detailed information about loan prices and characteristics were hidden and not available in HMDA data or other public databases. NCRC testified to Congress about this deficiency in HMDA data as early as 2007.[5] The lack of data was one reason the surge of abusive lending could not be stopped by regulatory agencies or detected by the public at large.[6] The CFPB has learned from this experience and has from the inception of Section 1071 data proposed robust information on loan pricing and terms and conditions.

The community development purpose of Section 1071 requires robust data

Periodic surveys, mostly on a national level, suggest that women-owned businesses and those owned by people of color significantly contribute to economic growth but that their growth and that of the economy as a whole remains impeded in part by inadequate access to credit. Small businesses drive economic growth and job creation in the United States. Small businesses are the prime source of employment for most of the workers in the United States and create approximately two out of every three jobs.^[7]

Women-owned businesses with employees account for about 20% of all employer businesses, number approximately 1.1 million and generate $1.8 trillion in revenue annually.^[8] The CFPB estimated that an additional 10 million women-owned firms do not have employees.^[9]  Firms owned by people of color are about one third of all businesses, total about 8 million businesses and employ 7.1 million people.^[10]

While these figures seem impressive, the full economic potential of women-owned firms and those owned by people of color is not realized if they experience disadvantages in the economy, including unequal access to credit. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that 41% of African American female business owners were discouraged from applying for credit in contrast to 16% of white female business owners.^[11] In addition, the average annual sales revenue for African American female business owners was $27,752 in contrast to $170,587 for white female business owners.^[12]

The Minority Business Development Administration (MBDA) found that businesses owned by people of color received lower loan amounts than white-owned firms. This finding remained even after controlling for the sales level of firms. The average loan received by high-sales firms owned by people of color was $363,000 compared to $592,000 for white-owned firms.^[13]

Narrowing disparities in business ownership by race through improved access to credit aided by data disclosure would boost community development in economically disadvantaged communities. According to NCRC, there are tremendous gaps in Black and Hispanic business ownership relative to their population size. Although 12.6% of the U.S. population was Black, only 2.1% of small businesses with employees were Black-owned. Hispanics were 16.9% of the population yet owned only 5.6% of businesses.^[14]

The Kauffman Foundation found that if people of color owned businesses at the same rate as non-minorities, our country would have one million additional employer businesses and more than 9.5 million additional jobs.^[15] Citigroup estimated that over a twenty-year time period, fair access to lending would have enabled African American small businesses to add $13 trillion in revenue and create 6 million jobs.[16] The CFPB reported on a National Small Business Association report finding a relationship between small business access to credit and the ability to hire.[17] By making the small business market more transparent and uncovering missed lending opportunities, Section 1071 is likely to increase lending to small business and thus help create more jobs.

Section 1071 data critical to addressing fair lending concerns

In addition to a community development purpose, Section 1071 data is vital to addressing fair lending concerns by helping stakeholders identify and correct possible fair lending violations. Racial disparities are currently stark. In mystery shopping conducted by NCRC in Los Angeles, White testers were given significantly better information about business loan products, particularly information regarding loan fees when white testers were told about what to expect 44% more frequently than Hispanic testers and 35% more frequently than black testers.^[18]

NCRC also surveyed more than 900 small businesses that had outstanding loan balances as of March 2020 with the intention of determining whether they had sufficient access to loan modifications during the pandemic. White small business owners who contacted commercial bank institutions received modification approvals at a significantly higher rate (26.7%) than Black (10.9%) and Latino (12%) small business owners who contacted these institutions.^[19]

A Federal Reserve-sponsored paper reconfirmed findings by NCRC and others. It revealed that even after controlling for firm characteristics such as profitability and creditworthiness, firms owned by people of color were still more likely to be denied loans than white-owned firms.^[20]

Differences by gender would likewise be narrowed by Section 1071 data either through voluntary action by lenders responding to continued gender disparities uncovered by the data or via enforcement actions when necessary. Part of the difficulty women-owned businesses face is a lack of credit and capital. On average, women start their businesses with half as much capital as men ($75,000 compared to $135,000). Also, just 5.5 percent of female-owned businesses used bank loans to start their businesses, compared to 11.4 percent of male-owned businesses.^[21] The Section 1071 data would be a more comprehensive and regular data source to monitor these disparities on an annual level.

CFPB correctly opted for a comprehensive database capturing critical factors influencing credit access: Section 1071 should be the standard database used by government agencies and the public

In order for a dataset to be effective in achieving community development and fair lending purposes, it needs to be comprehensive in its coverage of lenders and must capture important factors in credit underwriting so these can be controlled for in analyses of gender and racial disparities in lending. As the CFPB recognizes, annual disclosure of lending by the vast majority of small business lenders is a prerequisite for adequate oversight. The current data that consists of periodic surveys which are not usually lender specific is not sufficient.[22] The publicly available data is also inconsistent in the amount of detail on key underwriting variables that is needed for community needs and fair lending analysis.

The Section 1071 database should also become the data relied upon on an interagency basis for CRA and fair lending enforcement, examination and research just as HMDA data is relied upon for home lending. Currently, small business data is collected in a haphazard manner across multiple agencies including the federal bank agencies, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the CDFI Fund at the Department of Treasury.

Section 1071 has the potential to replace this inconsistent, duplicative and inefficient collection with a database that is more comprehensive. Lenders and community-groups alike would prefer to consult with one database than to contend with two or more that are collected annually. In this vein, the Section 1071 database should be able to capture more information than the current CRA data and other data on small business lending do. It seems that this is possible since the CFPB is proposing a comprehensive database (below, this comment will include more details regarding this issue).

The following are principles that the CFPB has adopted for this rulemaking and that must also guide the issuance of the final rule:

The rule must comprehensively cover the marketplace

NCRC applauds the CFPB’s decision to require lenders with 25 or more originations to report data. This will cover most banks and would likely cover most non-depository institutions. The CFPB estimates that the proposed threshold of 25 loans would cover about 70% of all banks. However, if the CFPB increases the threshold to 50 loans, coverage would drop precipitously to 52% of all banks. If the threshold is increased to 100 loans, just one third of banks would report.[23] Simply put, the fair lending and community development purpose would be frustrated if coverage of banks dropped to 50% or 33%. The database would no longer be statistically representative of actual lending and would not be able to accurately reveal whether credit needs were being met in all communities, but particularly in smaller urban areas and rural counties where smaller banks tend to be headquartered.

Intermediate small banks (assets between $346 million and $1.384 billion)[24] were previously required to report small business CRA data. These banks are especially important in rural communities and smaller cities. Using CRA data from 2003, one of the last years in which intermediate small banks reported data, NCRC estimated that these banks were between 15 to 20 percent of the market in the Appalachian portion of states like Maryland and Virginia.^[25] Also, a Federal Reserve survey reported that 42 percent of small businesses applying for credit applied to small banks. As of 2020, the Federal Reserve Banks found that applicants’ satisfaction rates of 79% was the highest with the small banks.^[26] Thus, Section 1071 data would be particularly useful to further probe reasons regarding whether this higher level of satisfaction is due to lower denial rates or better pricing. If these survey results were borne out via data analysis, the data would provide competitive impetus to larger banks to improve their performance.

In addition to banks, the rule must apply to credit unions, online financial technology companies, other non-depository institutions, Community Development Financial Institutions and public sector-based lenders. These lenders have different abilities to meet credit needs. Therefore, data on their performance is needed to not only make sure they are adhering to fair lending law but to ascertain if subgroups of small businesses are or are not receiving affordable and sustainable credit just because of which types of lenders disproportionately serve them.

Including reporting requirements for all types of lenders and for the vast majority of loans is necessary in order to promote fairness in the lending marketplace. As the CFPB itself states, “In general, the Bureau believes that broad coverage of institutions and products as requested by a number of…stakeholders would result in the collection of more data and would be consistent with the statutory purposes of section 1071.”[27]

Non-depository lenders, which currently do not publicly report data but must be included in Section 1071 data collection, were about 40% of the small business lending market according to the CFPB.[28] In addition, the Federal Reserve Banks reported that 20% of small business sought credit from online lenders.^[29] Covering online lenders is imperative because Federal Reserve surveys have revealed that small business applicants found their loan offers hard to understand, increasing the chances that the applicants will receive loans with higher interest rates than they anticipated or other undesirable terms and conditions.^[30] If online lenders reported information about their loans, including loan terms and conditions, the act of public data reporting and accountability may curb excessive pricing and onerous terms and conditions.

NCRC is pleased that the CFPB reversed its earlier decision and opted to include Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) companies as data reporters. MCAs advance funds to small businesses and then receive a daily or periodic percentage of small businesses receipts. This form of lending has been high-cost and can be abusive. The CFPB estimated it likely equaled $19 billion in financing, a significant increase from a few years ago.[31] In addition, a Federal Reserve survey found that African American and Hispanic small businesses were more likely to use MCAs than white-owned businesses.[32] Fair lending concerns about high-cost financing being targeted to businesses owned by people of color must be monitored via Section 1071 data reporting requirements.

Likewise, factors that advance funds to small businesses and then collect payments from the clients of small businesses must be covered. The CFPB has opted against covering factors, stating that they do not engage in lending. Yet, the amount of their funding is less than the amount of payments they receive from the small businesses’ clients. This would appear to be equivalent to interest payments. Factoring, like MCAs, can be abusive if not monitored. We urge the CFPB to reconsider and require reporting from factors.

The data must be robust including key factors for underwriting

A database will be able to adequately achieve a fair lending purpose only if it contains key variables that are used in underwriting and that allow analysts to assess if women-owned and minority-owned businesses are receiving a fair share of credit when compared to similarly qualified male-owned or white-owned small businesses. In this vein, the CFPB is correct to use its discretionary authority to require collection of data regarding whether a business is a start-up, the number of employees and the North American Industry Classification (NAIC) code which indicates the sector of the small business.[33]

We ask the CFPB to reconsider its decision to refrain from collecting the credit score of the small business applicant. The CFPB cites complexity as a reason to refrain from collection.[34] While a number of credit score systems can be used by lenders, the CFPB’s HMDA rule contains a useful precedent for collecting this critical variable. In addition, the possibility of a small business owner’s personal score rather than the business’ score being used can be accommodated in the data collection process. To the extent that credit score is relied upon by lenders writ large or a subgroup of lenders, the explanatory power of the Section 1071 database will be reduced if this variable is not collected. NCRC also believes that the CFPB should reconsider its decision to not disclose credit scores in any form in HMDA data. Should credit scores be collected in Section 1071 data, it should also be disclosed perhaps in a masked but still useful form.

In its final rule, the CFPB must retain the discretionary variables it has chosen for collection. Its list is carefully chosen and reflects key factors in the loan approval process. The list should be expanded to include other important variables like credit score, not diminished.

Pricing information measures affordability, sustainability and viability of lending

The CFPB proposed to collect a number of data points for pricing, including interest rates, fees, loan terms and the presence of prepayment penalties.[35] It is not sufficient to assess the accessibility of loans to women- and minority-owned small businesses in order to achieve the fair lending and community development purposes of Section 1071. Access to loans is not meaningful if they are disproportionately high-priced with onerous terms and conditions for traditionally underserved small businesses. Community development is frustrated if small businesses struggle to repay the loans instead of being able to expand their businesses and hire more employees. Fair lending could be violated if high-cost lending is targeted to protected classes. We applaud the CFPB’s proposal for pricing information but also urge the CFPB to consider the disclosure of the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) in addition to the components of pricing so that the public can determine via a well-understood variable, the APR, whether credit is being extended at a fair price.

Data on race and gender of the small business must be granular and not just aggregate; disability status should be added

The linchpin of Section 1071 is the required data on the race and gender of the small business owners. A large body of research, briefly discussed above, reveals past and continuing discrimination and difficulties in accessing credit for these businesses. Not only does race and gender data need to be collected but it needs to be collected in a precise manner. NCRC therefore appreciates the CFPB’s proposal to collect disaggregated race and ethnicity data as well as aggregated or broad categories of race and ethnicity. As HMDA data analysis has demonstrated, racial and ethnic subgroups have different experiences in the lending marketplace, meaning that data that only has broad categories will not reveal these differences and will thus underperform in achieving Section 1071’s fair lending purpose. We appreciate the CFPB’s decision to largely mirror HMDA’s aggregated and disaggregated racial and ethnic categories and also to propose additional categories such as Middle Eastern origins.[36]

NCRC urges the CFPB to further refine the gender categories. Gender is not binary as the CFPB recognizes. However, the CFPB’s choices of male, female, and “I prefer to describe” is not sufficient.[37] The comment below provides additional categories for consideration for gender identify and also sexual orientation. The proposed data collection will not be sufficient to determine if discrimination is occurring against LGBTQ businesses. Preliminary HMDA data analysis found disparities based on sexual orientation but the current analysis probably understates these disparities due to HMDA data limitations.[38]

Furthermore, the CFPB should consider adding variables to make it possible to determine with a business is owned by people with disabilities. While Congress did not mandate collection of disability status in Section 1071, it appropriately provided discretionary authority to the CFPB in case it missed critical data points. No one can seriously claim that discrimination does not occur against people with disabilities. It would be consistent with Section 1071’s fair lending purpose to collect data on people with disabilities owning small businesses because this would enable the CFPB and other data users to identify disparities and discrimination against people with disabilities.

The data must be easily accessible to the public

Section 1071 data will be most effective in holding lenders accountable for providing access to reasonably-priced credit if it is publicly available in an easy manner for community-based organizations, public officials and other stakeholders to use. In contrast if many variables are not disclosed to the public, lenders cannot be held as accountable. The agency would have all the data but may not engage in robust and frequent analysis of lenders’ records. The public will then have a truncated dataset that could not adequately reveal whether fair lending or community development objectives were being met. Lenders could object that analysis done by members of the public did not have key variables for explaining disparities not because the public did not know how to use the variables but because they were not available. Public availability of a robust dataset is therefore key to accountability by removing a veil of secrecy from vital data points.

The CFPB will employ its proposed balancing test to decide after the first year of data collection which data points to disclose to the public.[39] NCRC is confident that the vast majority of the contemplated data points can be disclosed without violating the privacy of applicants. In the more than 40 years of HMDA collection and dissemination, NCRC is not aware of a single incident of re-identification of an applicant that has caused harm. In contrast, private sector actors like Equifax have comprised the identifies of hundreds of millions of consumers via data breaches.[40] Truncating publicly available data used for fair lending and community development purposes is not the appropriate way to promote privacy interests. Instead, better enforcement against private sector databases is needed so they cannot be compromised in a detrimental manner.

As the CFPB recognized, “The bureau also notes that, based on the Bureau’s expertise and analysis, the publication of HMDA data—which contains many data fields that are similar to data fields that would be disclosed under section 1071—has not resulted in any measurable increase in fraud or identity theft against mortgage applicants.”[41]

The data must be accessible to users at all levels of expertise. While some stakeholders will engage in more sophisticated analyses, others will want to obtain basic facts such as the number and percent of loans offered to women-owned and businesses owned by people of color. This type of analysis is not supposed to be fully explanatory but instead is useful for discussions with lenders to see if those lagging behind their peers in reaching underserved businesses will take steps to increase their lending.

The full potential of Section 1071 data is only realized if the data is publicly and fully available in a form that a range of users can employ. It must be available for download on a loan-level basis. In addition, either summary tables must be available or query engines should be able to produce useful cross tabulations such as term loans by race or gender of the small business. The CFPB took steps backwards in HMDA data dissemination by providing the raw loan-level data but removing summary tables and not replacing them with a query engine that produces a variety of cross tabulations at different levels of disaggregation. The CFPB should revisit its HMDA dissemination and avoid similar truncated dissemination with the Section 1071 data.

Detailed Responses to CFPB Questions

We now offer detailed responses to the CFPB’s questions and discuss additional issues below such as those related to the characteristics of the small business, loan terms and conditions, the definition of an application, action taken, loan type, loan purpose and more:

Characteristics of the Small Business

Definition of Minority Individual

Question: The Bureau seeks comment on its proposed approach to this definition, including its proposed clarification of the definition of minority individual, and requests comment on whether additional clarification is needed. The Bureau is requesting comment regarding whether an additional category for Middle Eastern or North African should be added for purposes of responding to a financial institution’s inquiry regarding a principal owner’s ethnicity or race and, if so, how this category should be included and defined.[42]

The CFPB proposed that the definition of minority individual is Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and/or Hispanic or Latino. A multi-racial and multi-ethnic person would also be considered a minority individual. This would be consistent with the HMDA categories.[43] The CFPB’s proposal to mirror HMDA is desirable because the racial and ethnic categories are reasonably comprehensive and using the same categories eases reporting requirements for banks and also makes them consistent for applicants. In addition, NCRC is supportive of the CFPB adding Middle Eastern or North African as an additional category.[44] Bias against applicants that are first generation immigrants or whose family emigrated from those regions occurs and has a better chance of being captured by the data if these categories are added to the data.

 

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[1] Section 1071 – Small Business Data Collection, Public Law 111–203—July 21, 2010, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

[2] NCRC worked with members of Congress on these CRA modernization bills. See H.R. 865 – Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2001, Section 1071, https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/865/text  and H.R.1479 – Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009, see Section 105, Small business loan collection, https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/1479/text?r=32&s=1

[3] Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 12 CFR Part 1002, Docket No. CFPB-2021-0015, RIN 3170-AA09

Small Business Lending Data Collection under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B), Notice of Proposed Rule (NPR), Request for Public Comment, https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_section-1071_nprm_2021-09.pdf, pp. 4-5.

[4] NCRC, Home Loans to Minorities and Low- and Moderate-Income Borrowers Increase in the 1990s, but then Fall in 2001: A Review of National Data Trends from 1993 to 2001. Available upon request.

[5] Testimony of John Taylor, President and CEO of NCRC, before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, Rooting Out Discrimination in Mortgage Lending: Using HMDA as a Tool for Fair Lending Enforcement, July 25, 2007, https://ncrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/ncrc_test_reg_oversight_hearing_finsvs_july_07(2).pdf

[6] Adam J. Levitin and Susan M. Wachter, The Great American Housing Bubble, Harvard University Press, 2020, pp. 189-190.

[7] NPR, p. 13 and Mills, Karen Gordon and McCarthy, Brayden, Harvard Business School, The State of Small Business Lending: Credit Access During the Recovery and How Technology May Change The Game, p. 4, July 2014.

[8] Andrew Hait, Number of Women-Owned Employer Firms Increased 0.6% From 2017 to 2018, United States Census Bureau, March 2021, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/women-business-ownership-in-america-on-rise.html

[9] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Key Dimensions of the Small Business Lending Landscape, 13,  May 2017, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/key-dimensions-small-business-lending-landscape/

[10] NPR, p. 20 and CFPB, Key Dimensions, 15.

[11] Dell Gines, Black Women Business Startups, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, https://www.kansascityfed.org/community/economic-and-small-business-development/black-women-business-startups/, p. 12.

[12] Gines, p. 9.

[13] Minority Business Development Agency (January 2010). Disparities in Capital Access between Minority and Non-Minority Owned Businesses: The Troubling Reality of Capital Limitations Faced by MBEs. p. 5, https://www.mbda.gov/sites/default/files/migrated/files-attachments/DisparitiesinCapitalAccessReport.pdf

[14] NCRC, Disinvestment, Discouragement, and Inequity in Small Business Lending, Summer 2019,  https://ncrc.org/disinvestment/

[15] Kauffman Foundation, State of Entrepreneurship 2017: Zero Barriers – Three Mega Trends Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship, http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/resources/2017/state_of_entrepreneurship_address_report_2017.pdf

[16] Citigroup, Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions, Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S., at 4 (Sept. 2020), https://ir.citi.com/NvIUklHPilz14Hwd3oxqZBLMn1_XPqo5FrxsZD0x6hhil84ZxaxEuJUWmak51UHvYk75VKeHCMI%3D.

[17] NPR, pp. 28-29.

[18] NCRC, Disinvestment, Discouragement, and Inequity in Small Business Lending, Summer 2019,  https://ncrc.org/disinvestment/

[19]Anneliese Lederer and Sara Oros, Are Loan Modifications For Small Businesses A Possibility In The COVID-19 Pandemic?, February 2021, NCRC, https://ncrc.org/are-loan-modifications-for-small-businesses-a-possibility-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/

[20] Mels de Zeeuw, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Community and Economic Development Department, and Brett Barkley, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Supervision and Regulation Department (November 2019). Mind the Gap: Minority-Owned Small Businesses’ Financing Experiences in 2018. Consumer and Community Context, a Federal Reserve System publication, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 16. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-november-consumer-community-context.htm

[21] National Women’s Business Council – Problem: Women Entrepreneurs Need Greater Access to Capital, https://cdn.www.nwbc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/11091753/fact-sheet-access-to-capital.pdf

[22] NPR, page 18 and 25.

[23] NPR, p. 239.

[24] Agencies release annual asset-size thresholds under Community Reinvestment Act regulations, December 16, 2021, https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20211216a.htm

[25] Access to Capital and Credit for Small Businesses in Appalachia. (2007). National Community Reinvestment Association. https://ncrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ncrc%20study%20for%20arc.pdf

[26] Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, April 2017, 14

[27] NPR, p. 97, The CFPB continued by stating, “The Bureau does not believe that the request made by several trade association stakeholders to take a more limited approach to scope—including the various limitations on the coverage of certain types of financial institutions and products—would be consistent with the statutory purposes of section 1071.”

[28] NPR, p. 25.

[29] Federal Reserve Banks (2020). 2020 Report on Employer Firms, Small Business Credit Survey. p. 8. https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/medialibrary/FedSmallBusiness/files/2020/2020-sbcs-employer-firms-report.pdf

[30] Barbara J. Lipman, Federal Reserve Board Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, and Ann Marie Wiersch, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Community Development Department (November 2019). Searching for Small Business Credit Online: What Prospective Borrowers Encounter on Fintech Lender Websites. Consumer and Community Context, Vol. 1, No. 2, a Federal Reserve System publication, pp. 3 and 10.

[31] NPR, p. 15.

[32] Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Report on Minority-Owned Firms, Small Business Credit Survey, December 2019 p. 5, https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/medialibrary/fedsmallbusiness/files/2019/20191211-ced-minority-owned-firms-report.pdf

[33] NPR, p. 291.

[34] NPR, p. 296.

[35] NPR, p. 367.

[36] NPR, p. 458.

[37] NPR, p. 463.

[38] Jason Richardson and Karen Shakira Kali, Same-Sex Couples And Mortgage Lending, NCRC, June 2020, https://ncrc.org/same-sex-couples-and-mortgage-lending/

[39] NPR, p. 572.

[40] Josh Silver, The Big Red Herring: The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Will Help Predators Identify You! NCRC, February 2018, https://ncrc.org/big-red-herring-home-mortgage-disclosure-act-hmda-will-help-predators-identify/

[41] NPR, pp. 608-609.

[42] NPR, p. 134.

[43] NPR, pp. 132-133.

[44] NPR, p. 134.