Category Archives: Credit Reporting

Study finds borrower race does not affect appraiser valuation

Brent W. Ambrose of Pennsylvania State, James Conklin of Georgia, N. Edward Coulson of California, Irvine – Paul Merage School of Business, Moussa Diop of USC, and Luis A. Lopez of the University of Illinois at Chicago have written Does Appraiser and Borrower Race Affect Valuation? Here’s the abstract: Following concerns about undervaluation of minority-owned […]

Meirav Furth’s important article: Retail Race Discrimination

Meirav Furth of UCLA and Tel-Aviv University has written Retail Race Discrimination. Here's the abstract: This Article investigates everyday race discrimination while shopping in clothing stores of different price ranges. It reports on an original field experiment which examines the combined effects of race and gender on consumers’ shopping experiences and outcomes. Nineteen testers—Black and white […]

Remolina paper on the role of financial regulators in the governance of algorithmic credit scoring

Nydia Remolina of Singapore Management University – Centre for AI & Data Governance has written The Role of Financial Regulators in the Governance of Algorithmic Credit Scoring. Here’s the abstract: The use of algorithmic credit scoring presents opportunities and challenges for lenders, regulators, and consumers. This paper provides an analysis of the perils of the […]

Consumer Law Scholars Make Wide-Ranging Proposals to CFPB

The effort was led by Berkeley's Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice and resulted in production of a series of short memoranda available here. Topics covered include discrimination, arbitration, income share agreements, BNPL, substitution effects of regulation, disclosures, overdraft protections, and more.

NACA essay argues that consumer statutory damages set decades ago should be increased because of inflation

Here. Excerpt: Since the 70’s, the FCRA has allowed consumers with credit reporting claims to recover up to $1,000 per statutory violation of the law, while the FDCPA allows statutory damages up to $1000 per case even when multiple violations of the law are present. It is decades-past time for an update. An annual inflation […]

Paper on Removing Barriers to Mortgage Credit for Black Homebuyers

Michelle Aronowitz and Vanessa Gail Perry of George Washington have written Homeward Bound: Removing Barriers to Mortgage Credit for Black Homebuyers. Here’s the abstract: We analyze some of the key barriers to Black homeownership and propose several solutions that promise to expand homeownership opportunities, lower the costs of homeownership, and hasten equity accumulation for Black […]

Hawkins & Penner essay about advertising, racial steering, and lending

Jim Hawkins of Houston and Tiffany Penner have written Advertising Injustices: Marketing Race and Credit in America, 70 Emory Law Journal 1619 (2021). Here is the abstract: Access to affordable credit played a central role in the Civil Rights Movement. But today, racial and ethnic minorities oversubscribe to high-cost lending products like payday loans and underuse […]

Markup Study finds “loan applicants of color were 40%–80% more likely to be denied than their White counterparts”

Here, by Emmanuel Martinez and Lauren Kirchner and headlined "The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms." Excerpt: An investigation by The Markup has found that lenders in 2019 were more likely to deny home loans to people of color than to White people with similar financial characteristics—even when we controlled for newly available financial factors that the […]

Rep. McHenry opposes government-run credit bureau on ground that government suffers cyberattacks. Equifax, anyone?

by Jeff Sovern Last week, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on credit reporting. I haven't yet watched the recording, but the American Banker's Neil Haggerty has a story here (the story is behind a paywall, but is available on Lexis). Among the topics addressed during the hearing was President Biden's proposal for a […]