FRB_20220117_omb

Supporting Statement for the
Recordkeeping and Disclosure Requirements Associated with CFPB’s Regulation B
(FR B; OMB No. 7100-0201)
Summary
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), under authority
delegated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has extended for three years,
without revision, the Recordkeeping and Disclosure Requirements Associated with CFPB’s
Regulation B (FR B; OMB No. 7100-0201). The Board accounts for the paperwork burden
associated with Regulation B only for institutions for which the Board has enforcement authority
under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).1
The estimated total annual burden for the FR B is 104,810 hours.
Background and Justification
ECOA was enacted in 1974 and is implemented by the CFPB’s Regulation B for
institutions the Board supervises.2 Since 2011, the CFPB has been responsible for issuing ECOA
regulations that apply to institutions the Board supervises.3 However, the Board continues to be
responsible under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) for renewing every three years the
information collections mandated by the regulation for institutions supervised by the Board.
The ECOA prohibits discrimination in any aspect of a credit transaction because of race ,
color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, receipt of public assistance, or the fact
that the applicant has in good faith exercised any right under the Consumer Credit Protection
Act. To aid in implementation of this prohibition, the statute and regulation subject creditors to
various mandatory disclosure requirements, notification provisions informing applicants of
action taken on the credit application, provision of appraisal reports in connection with
mortgages, credit history reporting, monitoring rules, and recordkeeping requirements. These
requirements are triggered by specific events, and disclosures must be provided within the time
periods established by the statute and regulation. There are no required reporting forms
associated with the CFPB’s Regulation B. To ease the burden and cost of compliance
(particularly for small entities), Appendix B to Regulation B provides model disclosure forms.

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Other federal agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Office of the Comptroller of
the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, National Credit Union Administration, and Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) account for the paperwork burden imposed under ECOA on the institutions for which they have
administrative enforcement authority.
2
See 15 U.S.C. § 1691. The CFPB’s Regulation B is located at 12 CFR Part 1002.
3
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 transferred rulemaking authority for
ECOA to the CFPB, except for certain motor vehicle dealers that are excluded from the CFPB’s rulemaking authority,
which remain subject to the Board’s Regulation B located at 12 CFR Part 202. See 12 U.S.C. § 5519(a). The FTC has
authority to enforce ECOA for these motor vehicle dealers, although such enforcement authority is shared with the
CFPB with respect to dealers engaged in certain practices.

Description of Information Collection
The paperwork requirements of Regulation B are described below.
Recordkeeping Requirements
Section 1002.12 - Record Retention
A creditor must retain for 25 months any written or recorded material related to a
consumer credit application, as well as copies of any notification of action taken and statement of
specific reasons for adverse action (or any written notation or memo of an oral notification and
statement), and any written statement submitted by the applicant alleging a violation of ECOA or
Regulation B. Comparable records of business credit applications must be retained for 12 months.
The record retention requirements also extend to information used in prescreened credit
solicitations. If a creditor has actual notice that it is under investigation or is subject to an
enforcement proceeding for an alleged violation, or if it has been served with notice of a civil
action, the creditor must retain the information until final disposition of the matter, unless an
earlier time is allowed by the appropriate agency or court order.
Sections 1002.13(a) and (b) - Information for Monitoring Purposes
A creditor is required to request that an applicant indicate his or her race, ethnicity, sex,
age, and marital status in connection with applications for credit primarily for purchasing or
refinancing a dwelling to be occupied by the applicant as a principal residence and secured by a
lien on the dwelling. Creditors are generally otherwise prohibited from collecting such applicant
data except for self-testing purposes.
Disclosure Requirements
Section 1002.9 - Notifications
Consumer credit. Under ECOA and Regulation B, an applicant is entitled to notice of the
action taken on a credit application and, if the creditor’s decision results in the denial or
termination of credit, a written statement of the specific reasons for the adverse action (or
disclosure of the right to request the reasons) (an “adverse action notice”). An adverse action
notice must generally be in writing, except that creditors that did not receive more than 150
applications during the preceding year may provide notices of adverse action orally.
Business credit. Generally, a business applicant’s asset size determines a creditor’s precise
obligations. When a creditor takes adverse action on an application from a business with $1
million or less in annual revenues, the creditor may notify the business applicant orally or in
writing. The creditor must also provide the applicant with reasons for an adverse action or a
notice telling the applicant of its right to request the reasons within the same time periods that
apply in the case of consumer applicants. A business with more than $1 million in annual
revenues is entitled to oral or written adverse action notice within a reasonable time of the action
taken and, if timely requested, a written adverse action notice.

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Section 1002.10 - Furnishing of Credit Information
Creditors that furnish credit information to consumer reporting agencies must designate
any new account to reflect the participation of both spouses if the applicant’s spouse is permitted
to use or is contractually liable on the account (other than as a guarantor, surety, endorser, or
similar party). Creditors must also designate any existing account to reflect such participation,
within 90 days after receiving a written request to do so from one of the spouses.
Section 1002.13(c) - Information for Monitoring Purposes
When a creditor is required under this section to request that an applicant indicate his or
her race, ethnicity, sex, age, and marital status, the applicant must be informed that the
information is being requested by the federal government for the purpose of monitoring the
creditor’s compliance with federal law and that if the applicant declines to provide the
information, the bank will note the applicant’s ethnicity, race, and sex based on visual
observation or surname.
Section 1002.14 - Rules on Providing Appraisals and Other Valuations
A creditor is required to provide to an applicant, as a matter of course, a copy of all
appraisals and other written valuations developed in connection with an application for credit
that is to be secured by a first lien on a dwelling within specified time periods. Applicants are
permitted to waive the timing requirements for receipt of the appraisals and other written
valuations, but in such cases the creditor must generally provide the copies to the applicant prior
to consummation (if closed-end credit) or account opening (if open-end credit) or if the creditor
determines that the transaction will not be consummated. Creditors must also notify applicants in
writing within three business days of receiving an application that a copy of all appraisals and
other written valuations developed in connection with applications for covered mortgage credit
transactions will be provided to the applicant promptly. The notice of an applicant’s right to
receive a copy of appraisals is not required to be in any particular format, but the regulation
contains model language to ease compliance.
Self-Testing
Recordkeeping Requirements
Sections 1002.12 and 1002.15 - Incentives for self-testing and self-correction
If the creditor conducts a self-test (as defined under section 1002.15), the creditor
ordinarily must retain all written or recorded information about a self-test for 25 months.
Disclosure Requirements
Section 1002.5 - Rules Concerning Requests for Information
When a creditor inquires about personal characteristics such as race or national origin for

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the purpose of conducting a self-test under section 1002.15, the creditor must disclose orally or in
writing to the consumer at the time of the information request that providing the information is
optional, that the information request is to monitor compliance with ECOA, that federal law
prohibits discrimination on the basis of this information or on the basis of an applicant’s decision
not to furnish this information, and that, if applicable, certain information may be noted by visual
observation or surname.
Respondent Panel
The Board accounts for the paperwork burden imposed under ECOA, as implemented by
the CFPB’s Regulation B, for the following institutions (except those entities supervised by the
CFPB): state member banks; subsidiaries of state member banks; subsidiaries of bank holding
companies; U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks (other than federal branches, federal
agencies, and insured state branches of foreign banks); commercial lending companies owned or
controlled by foreign banks; and organizations operating under section 25 or 25A of the Federal
Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. §§ 601-604a; 611-631). The CFPB supervises, among other institutions,
insured depository institutions with over $10 billion in assets and their affiliates (including
affiliates that are themselves depository institutions regardless of asset size and subsidiaries of
such affiliates).
Time Schedule for Information Collection
The recordkeeping and disclosure requirements associated with Regulation B are
triggered by certain events, and disclosures must be provided to applicants within prescribed
times (as discussed above), and records must be retained for specified periods (as discussed
above).
Public Availability of Data
There is no data related to this information collection available to the public.
Legal Status
The ECOA authorizes the CFPB to issue regulations to carry out the statute’s purposes
(15 U.S.C. § 1691b(a)). The ECOA also directs the CFPB to promulgate regulations requiring
covered entities to maintain records evidencing compliance with the statute for at least one year
(12 U.S.C. § 1691b(d)). These regulations impose recordkeeping and disclosure requirements on
Board-supervised entities. Compliance with the recordkeeping and disclosure requirements of
the CFPB’s Regulation B is mandatory.
The disclosures, records, policies, and procedures required by Regulation B are not
required to be submitted to the Board. This information would generally only be obtained if
Federal Reserve examiners retained a copy as part of an examination or supervision of a bank , in
which case the information may be treated as confidential under exemption 8 of the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(8)). In addition, information obtained by the Federal
Reserve examiners may be kept confidential under exemption 4 of the FOIA as confidential

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commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private
(5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4)) or under exemption 6 to the extent that the disclosure of information
would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6)).
Consultation Outside the Agency
The Board consulted with the CFPB regarding the estimated burden of this information
collection.
Public Comments
On July 19, 2021, the Board published an initial notice in the Federal Register (86 FR
38091) requesting public comment for 60 days on the extension, without revision, of the FR B.
The comment period for this notice expired on September 17, 2021. The Board did not receive
any comments. The Board adopted the extension, without revision, of the FR B as originally
proposed. On November 23, 2021, the Board published a final notice in the Federal Register (86
FR 66563).
Estimates of Respondent Burden
As shown in the table below, the estimated total annual burden for the FR B is 104,810
hours. These recordkeeping and disclosure requirements represent approximately 1.4 percent of
the Board’s total paperwork burden.

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Estimated
Estimated
Estimated
Annual
number of
average hours annual burden
frequency
respondents4
per response
hours

FR B
Recordkeeping
Section 1002.12
Record retention for applications,
actions, prescreened solicitations,
self-testing, and self-correction
Sections 1002.13(a) and (b)
Information for monitoring
purposes
Disclosure
Section 1002.9
Notifications
Section 1002.10
Furnishing of credit information
Section 1002.13(c)
Information for monitoring
purposes
Section 1002.14
Rules on providing appraisals and
other valuations
Self-testing
Recordkeeping
Section 1002.12
Incentives for self-testing
Incentives for self-correction
Disclosure
Section 1002.5
Rules concerning requests for
information disclosure for optional
self-test

851

8,033

0.004

27,344

851

1,762

0.017

25,491

851

8,033

0.004

27,344

851

1,423

0.004

4,844

851

1,762

0.004

5,998

851

2,025

0.008

13,786

187
47

1
1

0.004
0.016

1
1

187

1

0.004

1

Total

104,810

The estimated total annual cost to the public for the FR B is $6,199,512.5
4

Of these respondents, the small entities as defined by the Small Business Administration (i.e., entities with less than
$600 million in total assets), https://www.sba.gov/document/support--table-size-standards, are as follows: 541 for the
Record retention for applications, actions, prescreened solicitations, self-testing, and self-correction; Information for
monitoring purposes; Notifications; Furnishing of credit information; Information for monitoring purposes; and
Rules on providing appraisals and other valuations; and none for Incentives for self-testing; Incentives for selfcorrection; and Rules concerning requests for information disclosure for optional self -test.
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Total cost to the public was estimated using the following formula: percent of staff time, multiplied by annual
burden hours, multiplied by hourly rates (30% Office & Administrative Support at $20, 45% Financial Managers at
$73, 15% Lawyers at $72, and 10% Chief Executives at $95). Hourly rates for each occupational group are the
(rounded) mean hourly wages from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment and Wages
May 2020, published March 31, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm. Occupations are defined
using the BLS Standard Occupational Classification System, https://www.bls.gov/soc/.

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Sensitive Questions
Sensitive questions are not contained in any report or survey sponsored by the Board in
connection with Regulation B. However, applicants for mortgage loans are asked to voluntarily
provide information on ethnicity, sex, age, and marital status so that regulators may monitor for
compliance with the law. If they do not provide the information, certain information may be
noted by visual observation or surname. For all non-mortgage credit, a creditor may not ask or
note applicants’ sex, race, color, religion, or national origin. There is an exception permitting
collection of this information for purposes of conducting a self -test that meets the requirements
of section 1002.15. It is at the option of the applicant to provide this information.
Estimate of Cost to the Federal Reserve System
The estimated cost to the Federal Reserve System for this information collection is
negligible.

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