The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in the fall of 2018, announced plans for rule-making to define the meaning of “abusive” under its authority to ban unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices.

In May of this year Blankenstein resigned from the CFPB, where he served as associate policy director overseeing supervision, enforcement and fair lending. His past writings came to light in the fall of 2018.

State regulators are showing no sign of slackening their focus on "fair servicing," with mortgage processors seeing more examinations focusing on disparate-impact theories.

At a recent American Bankers Association conference, Cathryn Abshier, fair lending officer and vice president of compliance at Mr. Cooper, said the nation’s third-largest servicer is seeing state regulators focus on disparate impact in their fair lending examinations.

In May, the bureau published nine orders partially modifying CIDs issued over the past few years.

Anurag Agarwal, president of compliance risk analysis at Asurity Technologies, warned of an increase in regulatory examinations and fair lending inquiries from community groups and the media once the complete data set is available to the wider public.