The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has rescinded a 2020 advisory opinion that addressed criteria surrounding the administration of special-purpose credit programs at for-profit banks and other businesses. 

The move follows the CFPB's decision in April to change language in Regulation B, which governs the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, eliminating the applicability of "disparate impact" tied to race, gender and other protected classes. The bureau said its rescission of the 2020 opinion was done, in part, to avoid conflict or confusion with April's revision. 

"The advisory opinion addresses SPCP provisions under Regulation B that have since been amended, rendering those discussions out-of-date or, at best, incomplete," the CFPB said in a filing with the Federal Register last week.

The April 2026 final rule outlawed for-profit organizations from applying characteristics, including race, in determining eligibility for special-purpose credit programs. Its implementation will effectively make language found in the advisory opinion irrelevant, which required participants to belong to a designated group an SPCP was originally designed to serve, the CFPB said. 

"The Bureau determined that it is no longer appropriate, necessary or proper for the SPCP standards in Regulation B to permit such programs to use the common characteristics of race, color, national origin or sex as eligibility criteria."

CFPB officials also pointed out guidance in the 2020 opinion, which said for-profit businesses should demonstrate how a borrower in a group benefiting from their SPCP would "probably" be denied credit under existing criteria. The April rule change raised the threshold for companies to show how consumers "actually" would not be served, thereby necessitating removal.   

How recent changes affect home lending

While it adds no new provisions or requirements to existing rules, the agency's latest decision underscores the Trump administration's walkback from previously established efforts to address financial disparities in underserved communities, particularly in housing. 

First introduced within ECOA upon its enactment in the 1970s, special-purpose credit programs received a renewed push during the Biden administration as a tool to increase homeownership in minority communities.  

Following April's revision, fair lending groups filed a lawsuit against the CFPB, seeking to nullify the changes, which are scheduled to go into effect in July. Plaintiffs noted the new ECOA rules entered the Federal Register after the bureau took only five months to review approximately 64,000 comments to its proposal. 

They also claimed the new rule will lead banks to pull back lending in predominantly minority communities if they face no legal consequences for doing so.

In the first weeks of his tenure as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte also banned the enterprises he oversees, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from offering or purchasing any loans from SPCPs.