Sponsors (16)
The bill cuts compliance burdens for lenders and eases regulator workload—potentially lowering costs and modestly increasing lending capacity—but does so by eliminating standardized small‑business lending data, which reduces transparency, weakens oversight, and makes it harder to detect and address discriminatory or inequitable credit outcomes.
Small-business owners and lenders (including community banks and credit unions) will face lower reporting and compliance costs because small‑business loan application data collection and reporting requirements are repealed, reducing administrative burden.
Some local lenders may be able to reallocate compliance cost savings toward more lending to local businesses, which could modestly improve credit availability in some communities.
Federal regulators (notably the CFPB) and state governments will have reduced statutory and enforcement workload because the bill eliminates the Section 1071 reporting obligation.
Small-business owners—especially women- and minority-owned businesses—will lose access to a standardized federal data source that helps detect and document lending discrimination and disparities.
Researchers, federal agencies, and policymakers will have less standardized data on small‑business lending, making it harder to study credit access, design targeted programs, and measure whether policies are improving access for underserved entrepreneurs.
Regulators and the public will have reduced transparency and tools for oversight, weakening accountability and making enforcement of fair‑lending laws more difficult.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Repeals the federal requirement that lenders collect and report data on small-business loan applications and outcomes and removes related statutory references.
Introduced February 12, 2025 by John Neely Kennedy · Last progress February 12, 2025
Repeals the federal requirement that lenders collect and report data about small-business loan applications and outcomes under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and removes related references in the Dodd-Frank Act and statutory tables of contents. The change eliminates the statutory small-business lending data collection program, reduces the reporting obligations on banks and credit unions, and removes a source of standardized data used to analyze small-business credit access and potential discrimination.