ICBA sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding its proposed rule amending Reg B to clarify obligations under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. ICBA said:

• The proposal to amend Reg B with ECOA's statutory text will reduce regulatory uncertainty and protect community banks from costly litigation.
• The proposal aligns with Executive Orders 14173 and 14281, emphasizing merit-based opportunities and eliminating disparate-impact liability where unsupported by law.
• It supports the CFPB’s elimination of disparate impact liability under ECOA because lacks an “otherwise adversely affect” clause, which courts have found to trigger disparate impact analysis in other statutes.
• It supports the CFPB’s decision to limit discouragement to oral or written statements and not to include things like branch placement, which has limited communicative value.
• It opposes changes to special purpose credit program eligibility, because the rule would prohibit the use of race or sex as a criteria for SPCP eligibility and ICBA believes this change would make SPCPs a less effective tool for increasing credit access in underserved areas and would make them less useful to banks who use them to comply with fair lending laws and the CRA.