Following up on Jeff's post yesterday, read Nikitra Bailey's piece in the American Banker entitled Scrapping CFPR auto lending rule would only lead to more discrimination. Here's an excerpt:
A group of senators is working to make it easier for automobile dealers to discriminate against consumers of color, setting them up to pay unfair additional fees on their loans. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and 20 of his Republican colleagues are seeking to override the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s longstanding indirect auto lending guidance using the Congressional Review Act. Evidence of widespread racial discrimination in auto lending dates back to at least the mid-1990s, when a series of lawsuits were filed against the largest auto finance companies based on data showing that borrowers of color were twice as likely to have their loans marked up and paid twice as much as similarly situated white borrowers with similar credit ratings. In 2013, under the previous CFPB leadership, the bureau and the Department of Justice concluded that auto financers' policy of giving dealers discretion to mark up the interest rate of auto financing resulted in discrimination against borrowers of color. That guidance, once announced, put auto lenders on clear notice that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act makes them liable for discriminatory pricing on auto loans they acquire from auto dealers. ECOA makes it illegal for a creditor to discriminate in any aspect of a credit transaction on the basis of race or other protected classes — including indirect auto lenders.