The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking for ways to find discriminatory or predatory lending.
It’s nice to see data being used in a regulatory fashion, and maybe exposing more data to the light of review.
This type of behavior is potentially huge in the world of finance. One of the limiting factors for a small investor is knowledge. Markets are supposedly in equilibrium due to all information being understood and acted upon. The reality for me is that I don’t know everything. How can I understand the actuarial tables from all of the lenders for my Small business loan, and know whether I’m getting the best rate. How do I know that my area hasn’t been unfairly targeted for an unfair redlining?
If regulatory agencies take over this type of data collection, and dissemination, it creates a force in the market to have all actors behave in a way that they want their customers to be happy with. You might have the ability to sneak one over on me, but if I know that you have I’m not going to be too happy with you, and I just might not do business with you in the future.