On June 4, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under acting director Russell Vought terminated an oversight agreement that it had with Bank of America after it submitted false mortgage data. The agreement was supposed to last until at least November 2028.
The CFPB had a significant role in correcting Bank of America’s wrongdoing. From early 2016 to late 2017, some loan officers working for the bank failed to, or refused to, collect race, ethnicity, and sex data on mortgage applicants, then lied by stating that it was the consumers who declined to prove the information. The CFPB collects data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to prevent home lender discrimination.
The CFPB justified this move by saying that Bank of America already paid its $12 million penalty. However, the point of this monitoring was to disincentivize other banks from committing the same crime as Bank of America. Even prior to the cessation of the monitoring, the huge bank was given a mere slap on the wrist with such a mere fine, yet the damage done to the housing market by such a significant lender could have exceeded $12 million.
