On March 10, 2022, the CFPB announced that the Bureau has launched a new initiative to focus on financial issues facing rural America. According to the post, there is a need to pay attention to the particular challenges rural communities face as they work to build and maintain their financial resiliency.

Last February, Director Chopra invited over 50 people from organizations representing rural people across the country to tell their stories and share their concerns. It was found that larger economic trends are affecting the financial resilience of rural families and their experiences with consumer finance.

According to the CFPB, it will initially focus on the following issues:

Rural Banking Deserts. The stark declines in the number of banks in rural areas have had a particularly negative impact on rural communities. The decline in banks has led to non-bank alternatives that charge higher fees and interest rates, which results in more money leaving rural communities. Trends of bank consolidation also resulted in the loss of local, on-the-ground knowledge of how rural communities operate.
Discriminatory and Predatory Agricultural Credit. Stakeholders working closely with Black farmers described a long history of credit providers discriminating against Black farmers contributing to the decline of Black farmers and Black land loss. Today, only 1.5% of all farmers are Black farmers. Farmers also shared that their obligations to banks can trap them in exploitative arrangements with dominant agriculture firms.
Manufactured Housing. People in the rural area depend on manufactured housing. However, manufactured home parks are increasingly being bought up by private equity firms that have, in some cases, dramatically increased rents and tacked on fees in short periods of time. Some of the manufactured home owners reported neighbors who could no longer afford the increased lot rents and were forced to move and leave their house behind because it is usually cost-prohibitive to move a manufactured home.

The CFPB is concerned about these threats to rural household financial resiliency and has committed to ensure that rural communities, and the people who live in them, have opportunities to build wealth and thrive.

Read the CFPB’s blog post here.