On 1/14/2022, the CFPB issued an article regarding discrimination based on their religious beliefs. The blog post, authored by Lorelei Salas, emphasizes that it is illegal to penalize borrowers for being religious.
According to the article, the CFPB is concerned that some financial companies are unlawfully considering religion when making decisions on financial products. The bureau recently reported that their examiners found that lenders violated fair lending law by improperly inquiring about small business applicants’ religious affiliation by utilizing questionnaires which contained explicit inquiries about the applicant’s religious affiliation. The examiners also found that lenders also denied credit to applicants identified as a religious institution because the applicants did not respond to the questionnaire.
In the blog post, the CFPB also expressed its concern about how financial institutions might be making use of artificial intelligence and other algorithmic decision tools such as use of third-party data to analyze geolocation data to power their credit decision tools. The CFPB reiterates that they will closely monitor the use of these tools and that institutions may face consequences if found that it violates the fair lending laws.
The full CFPB blog post can be found here.