The ECOA, or Equal Credit Opportunity Act, was created over 40 years ago.
The United States government enacted this legislation that was designed to prevent individuals from being discriminated against when applying for loans.
Up until the introduction of this legislation, known more commonly by the abbreviation of ECOA, banks and other lending institutions were able to consider an individual’s race, religion and gender.
Also whether they were married or not when making lending decisions. This effectively meant that many individuals experienced discrimination when applying for a loan or a mortgage.
Before ECOA – The Equal Credit Opport Act
Prior to the government passing the ECOA legislation in 1974, some groups within society, such as divorced women and African Americans, found it much more difficult to access credit.
Additionally, they found their loan repayment terms were far worse than other demographic groups.
The core principle underpinning the Equal Credit Opportunity Act is that no bank, or any other financial institution, can decide whether to lend to a person or not based on multiple factors.
These factors are mainly those that can be considered as potentially being discriminatory. Factors which are expressly excluded from the legislation so as to prevent discrimination include:
- Religious affiliation background
- Marital status and,
Due to ECOA, lending institutions are also prohibited from basing their decisions on whether or not to provide a loan based on an applicant’s age. However, this only applies to applicants who have reached legal age and above.
Misunderstanding the ECOA
A common misunderstanding about the ECOA legislation is that its purpose is to make obtaining credit easier for discriminated groups.
While it does in many cases serve this function, the Act’s purpose is to remove discrimination from lending decisions.
However, ECOA doesn’t in anyway try to influence how a bank views a person’s credit trustworthiness; it simply aims to prevent banks making on other factors not related to an individual’s credit trustworthiness, such as race.
Why was it Introduced?
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act was introduced to address multiple issues that were becoming more and more relevant to people’s lives at the time.
- Firstly, discrimination in the USA was far greater in the 1970s than it is now.
- Secondly, society was already beginning to move more towards credit based transactions and away from being so reliant on cash. As such, the authorities recognized the need to address discrimination in the credit markets to stop economic opportunities being denied to individuals.
This included obtaining a mortgage, based on factors such as race and gender. Despite the legislation not being perfect, it has been positive for American society.