Small LENDER Act

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 941 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 941

 To amend the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to provide for an effective 
  date and a temporary safe harbor for compliance with certain small 
    business lending data collection rules, and for other purposes.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 4, 2025

    Mr. Hill of Arkansas (for himself, Mr. Meuser, Mrs. Wagner, Mr. 
Huizenga, Mr. Timmons, Mr. Moore of North Carolina, and Mr. Williams of 
    Texas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to provide for an effective 
  date and a temporary safe harbor for compliance with certain small 
    business lending data collection rules, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Small Lenders Exempt from New Data 
and Excessive Reporting Act'' or the ``Small LENDER Act''.

SEC. 2. SMALL BUSINESS LOAN DATA COLLECTION.

    Section 704B of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (15 U.S.C. 1691c-
2) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (g), by adding at the end the following:
            ``(4) Compliance with covered rule.--
                    ``(A) In general.--With respect to the covered 
                rule, the Bureau shall provide a financial institution 
                a 3-year period beginning on the date the covered rule 
                was issued to comply with the rule.
                    ``(B) Safe harbor.--After the end of the 3-year 
                period described under subparagraph (A), the Bureau 
                shall provide a 2-year safe harbor to a financial 
                institution during which the financial institution is 
                required to comply with the covered rule but is not 
                subject to any penalties for failure to comply with the 
                covered rule.
                    ``(C) Covered rule defined.--In this paragraph, the 
                term `covered rule' means the final rule of the Bureau 
                titled `Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit 
                Opportunity Act (Regulation B)' (88 Fed. Reg. 35150, 
                published May 31, 2023).''; and
            (2) in subsection (h)--
                    (A) by striking paragraph (1) and inserting the 
                following:
            ``(1) Financial institution.--The term `financial 
        institution' means--
                    ``(A) any partnership, company, corporation, 
                association (incorporated or unincorporated), trust, 
                estate, cooperative organization, or other entity that 
                engages in any financial activity; and
                    ``(B) in each of the previous 2 calendar years 
                originated not less than 500 credit transactions for 
                small businesses.''; and
                    (B) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the 
                following:
            ``(2) Small business.--The term `small business' means any 
        entity with gross annual revenues of $1,000,000 or less in the 
        most recently completed fiscal year.''.
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