Fair Housing Act

New notices pointed out how large learning models could lead real estate businesses to unintentionally violate the Fair Housing Act in a marketing campaign.

The lawsuit accuses Navy Federal of violating the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act after a CNN report that the lender approved a lower percentage of Black and Latino mortgage applicants.

Two separate programs providing as much as $10,000 in assistance are open to eligible borrowers in the Philadelphia area.

Artificial intelligence can help cut bias out of credit models. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should make it easier for lenders to adopt it.

The Department of Justice said City National avoided offering home loans in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Los Angeles County from 2017 to 2020.

The agency released two reports Tuesday outlining shortcomings of the background check industry and pledged to root out false information and faulty practices in the space.

The same day Provident Financial Services announced it had agreed to buy Lakeland for $1.3 billion, the seller disclosed an ongoing fair-lending investigation by the Justice Department. Provident said it has "not heard anything" that would give it pause.

AI, ML, predictive analytics and complex algorithms can help lenders expand credit to more consumers, but some critics feel the technology can feed into existing discrimination and bias that applicants face.

The Justice Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three state attorneys general alleged that Trident Mortgage, a lender owned by Berkshire Hathaway, engaged in redlining and discrimination in the Philadelphia area.

Agencies supervising lenders should make it clear that the transition to less discriminatory algorithms won’t be used to punish banks for their previous use of older, less effective systems.