Lisa Rice’s Testimony Before the Full House Committee on Financial Services

On Tuesday, February 26, 2019, the House Committee on Financial Services, chaired by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, held a hearing entitled, “Who’s Keeping Score? Holding Credit Bureaus Accountable and Repairing a Broken System.” Witnesses included Lisa Rice, President & CEO of NFHA, along with Chi Chi Wu, National Consumer Law Center; Jennifer Brown, UnidosUS, Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and civil rights and consumer protection advocates as well as the CEOs of the three major credit reporting agencies – Mark Begor, Equifax; Craig Boundy, Experian; and James Peck, TransUnion.

The witnesses were asked to explore whether the U.S. credit reporting system is safe and fair for consumers, ways to limit discriminatory effects of credit scoring, and solutions for warding off future cybersecurity breaches. Chairwoman Maxine Waters has introduced two pieces of legislation to address concerns about consumer safety and protection. The Comprehensive Consumer Credit Reform Act of 2019 would create a mechanism for removing negative data associated with predatory, discriminatory and abusive lending practices from consumer credit reporting files. The Protecting Innocent Consumers Affected by a Shutdown Act would provide assistance to federal employees, contractors and other consumers negatively affected by a Federal government shutdown.

See Lisa Rice testify before the committee on the discriminatory effects of the U.S. credit reporting and scoring systems.

Read Lisa Rice’s testimony – Missing Credit: How the U.S. Credit System Restricts Access to Consumers of Color