In 2010, as Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it directed the agency to collect data on small-business lending. That would be the rough equivalent of home mortgage application data made public for decades, which has helped reveal discriminatory practices.
Years went by. No rule to get lenders to report small-business loan data was enacted.
In 2019, two groups and two small-business owners joined forces to sue.
Here is that lawsuit, which prompted the CFPB to settle and, in September 2021, propose the long-awaited rule.