“Equality” is defined as the state of being equal, while “Equity” is defined as the state of being fair. Now, don’t get me wrong, equality aims for fairness, however, unless we are all starting the race at the same starting point, the goal post can sometimes get moved and as a result (be it intentional or not), some can be unfairly left behind. Because of this, laws had to be created to level the playing field, with the intention of giving everyone a fair shake at equity, be it in the workplace, when trying to obtain credit, or when determining what community, they would like to call home.
I have recently had an opportunity to host several industry professionals in a couple of virtual roundtable discussions. One of the topics that gets everyone’s attention is the discussion around Fair Lending Laws, be it monitoring for Fair Housing or Equal Credit (ECOA) Opportunities. Many in the Financial Services industry are trying to take the regulatory temperature to get the right combination of monitoring and auditing while navigating their business areas through any potential landmines that may be out there.
As we are emerging from the pandemic, the home purchase market is still booming, yet there has been some discouraging data as it applies to minority homeownership. In Q2 2020 while the homeownership rate for White Americans jumped to 74.5%, the same report from the US Census Bureau showed a disappointing dip in homeownership for Black Americans as it hit a low of 44.1% coming in behind Asian, Native, Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders at 59.5% and Hispanics at 49.1%. That number leaves us with many questions, including the cause and what it will take to close this gap.
Here at PerformLine, my team and I have been diving deep into ways that we can expand on solutions that will further our efforts to help our clients monitor even more potential violations under the Fair Lending umbrella. We have always had rules and have done well in this area, but it is critical that we revisit our thinking continuously and evolve how we approach the laws based on what is happening in the world of compliance.
Getting this done is no easy feat, so I wanted to focus this blog on what we have been up to here and PerformLine, therefore I am co-writing this blog with our Client Solutions Architect, Mike Gibney, who has been spending a great deal of his time working on solutions to expand our Fair Lending rules which are a part of PerformLine’s extensive library of proprietary rulebooks.
Over the last year, PerformLine has been hard at work crafting new out-of-the-box rulebooks to support our clients’ compliance efforts through the rollercoaster of regulation and socio-political turbulence we’ve all been experiencing. (If you are a current client and haven’t taken advantage of our Covid-19, Verbal Loss Mitigation Applications, or Bias & Discrimination rulebooks yet, please reach out to your dedicated Client Success Manager and ask for them to be uploaded into your application today.)
Building on our foundation of rulebooks and sustaining our momentum in supporting our clients, PerformLine is proud to announce a new suite of omni-channel rulebook solutions to mitigate risk and protect your brand as it pertains to Fair Lending Act requirements. The new FLA rulebook consists of tools that surface occurrences of…
- Equity Based Loss Mitigation Applications
- Discriminatory Targeting
- Discriminatory Denial Claims
- Discriminatory Pricing Claims
- Improper Fiduciary Language
- Subjective Opinion Based Language
…as they relate to your brand and partners monitored via the PerformLine platform across 6 channels of coverage: the web, social media, call centers, messaging platforms, emails, and documents.
I’m personally proud of our new Fair Lending Act rulebook for several reasons, but most importantly, the diverse group of people that came together in forming it. Acting not only as your technology partner, but a trusted partner in compliance, PerformLine hosted roundtable discussions with industry experts across our client base, leveraged our internal mortgage expertise resources, and drew from our vast library of insightful regulatory content curated by our COMPLY Conferences.
When you put all those resources under one roof and pair that expertise with the technology to act on it, we can all sleep a little better at night.
As Mike shared, this project evolved from the voice of our clients and for that we are so proud. It is because of you that PerformLine is able to be a leader in the marketing compliance space. Your voice counts here at PerformLine and we look forward to the next opportunity to collaborate with so many industry professionals to create solutions that will allow you to rest easy knowing that your business is compliant.
If you have not had an opportunity to participate in one of our Roundtables, we hope that you will make time to do so soon. Our Roundtables provide a great opportunity to connect with an array of industry professionals to learn from one another and share best practices. Get notified of upcoming events by subscribing here.
John Zanzarella 
PerformLine 
Gianna Kennedy