CFPB Rule Defanging Fair Lending Enforcement Hits White House

The White House is reviewing a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that will weaken fair lending enforcement by eliminating a tool used to weed out unintentional discrimination.

The CFPB submitted its rewrite of Regulation B, implementing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, according to OIRA’s website. The White House review is the last step before the CFPB releases its final rule to eliminate the use of disparate impact—which relies on statistics to identify discriminatory patterns—and instead require proof of biased intent to bring a case.

The CFPB’s November proposal also called for tighter standards to go after lenders for allegedly discouraging borrowers from applying for loans based on race, gender, sex, or other protected characteristics.

The consumer finance watchdog also proposed barring lenders from creating “special purpose credit programs” aimed at boosting lending based on those same protected characteristics.

The coming CFPB rule is part of a broader effort across the Trump administration to roll back fair lending enforcement. Consumer advocates and Democratic lawmakers have blasted the proposals, saying they will make it significantly harder to root out discriminatory lending across the economy.

There’s no set time limit for a review by OIRA, a unit of the Office of Management and Budget. Russell Vought leads OMB and is also the CFPB’s acting chief.

The CFPB is facing a staffing shortage and has shifted lawyers from other units to complete rulemakings that are high on the Trump administration’s agenda. The agency is also operating under a slashed budget after Congress cut the amount of money the agency can request from the Federal Reserve by about half in a Republican tax-and-spending package signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025.

The defanging of fair lending enforcement is just one major regulation the CFPB is expected to send to the White House in the coming months. The agency is also working on rewrites of Biden-era open banking and small business lending demographic data collection rules.