Summary

Amends the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to delay and narrow enforcement of the CFPB’s final rule on small-business lending. It gives covered lenders three years from the rule’s issuance to comply and provides a two-year safe harbor during which compliance is required but civil penalties for noncompliance are suspended; it also raises the thresholds that define which lenders and which borrowers are covered.

• Provides a 3-year compliance period measured from the CFPB rule’s issuance for lenders to meet the small-business lending data rule.
• Establishes a 2-year safe harbor after the compliance period during which penalties for noncompliance do not apply if institutions are working to comply.
• Raises the lender coverage threshold to institutions that originated at least 500 small-business credit transactions in each of the prior two calendar years.
• Defines "small business" as entities with gross annual revenues of $1,000,000 or less, narrowing which borrowers are covered.
• Reduces the number of lenders and loans subject to the CFPB rule and likely lowers the volume of small-business lending data reported to regulators.
• Lowers near-term compliance and enforcement burdens on smaller lenders while potentially limiting regulator and researcher access to loan-level data.
• CFPB retains rule authority but must follow the new statutory timetable and definitions when enforcing the rule.