Pub. 13 2018-2019 Issue 5

NEBRASKA BANKERS ASSOCIATION 19 Commercial Loans and the FCRA T HE FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT (FCRA) BASICALLY REGULATES the furnishing and collecting of credit information and imposes certain disclosure requirements in connection with accessing credit reports. The FCRA itself is a statute and only a few parts of the statute have implementing regulations, so it can be particularly tricky to interpret at times. One of the most common questions we get on the Compliance AllianceHotline is whether the FCRA applies to commercial loans. Unfortunately, there’s not a straightforward answer to this like there is for Regulations X or Z. Although the FCRA is generally limited to consumer purpose transactions, it also applies in some cases to commercial purpose transactions involving a consumer. You might be asking, if there is a “consumer,” how can this possibly be a commercial loan?Well, the answer is that the statute defines “consumer” very simply—just as an “individual”: § 603. Definitions; rules of construction [15 U.S.C. § 1681a] … (c) The term “consumer” means an individual. As you can see, there’s no requirement that the individual be obtaining a product or service specifically for a consumer purpose. Likewise, the term “consumer report” includes other purposes besides just personal, family, or household purposes: (d) Consumer Report (1) In general. The term “consumer report” means any written, oral, or other communication… used or collected in whole or in part for the purpose of serv- ing as a factor in establishing the consumer’s eligibility for (A) credit or insurance to be used primarily for personal, family, or household purposes; Victoria E. Stephen , CRCM, Compliance Alliance Associate General Counsel Commercial Loans — continued on page 20