U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) recently urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to identify barriers that prevent women and minority entrepreneurs from starting small businesses.
The senators pressed the CFPB to follow through with implementing a provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that will bring greater transparency to small business lending. Specifically, the provision would require the bureau to collect and make available information about barriers women and minority business entrepreneurs face when they try to access loans and other startup capital needed to open new small businesses.
“We write to urge the CFPB to be expeditious in implementing these long-overdue transparency measures, which will finally shine a light on the barriers that women, minority, and other entrepreneurs face in accessing capital,” the senators wrote in a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
As a first step toward removing lending barriers faced by women and minority entrepreneurs, Dodd-Frank required financial institutions to collect and report information about loans to small businesses, including women-owned, minority-owned small businesses. In May, the CFPB requested public comments on this Dodd-Frank rule.
“We ask that the CFPB complete its public comment and move with speed to finalize guidance under a definite timeline,” the senators wrote.