Bank of America (BAC) has been fined by federal regulators for not collecting information that’s meant to help the government combat mortgage lending discrimination.

The country’s second-largest consumer bank has agreed to pay a $12 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government’s consumer watchdog agency, for not asking mortgage applicants their race, ethnicity, and sex, and then saying the applicants didn’t provide that information, the bureau said Tuesday.

A federal law passed in 1975, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, requires mortgage lenders to collect demographic information from applicants and pass it along to regulators, to help identify possible patterns of discrimination among other things. The law was intended to combat racial prejudice in home lending, a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:longstanding problem in the financial services world. 

“Bank of America violated a federal law that thousands of mortgage lenders have routinely followed for decades,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “It is illegal to report false information to federal regulators, and we will be taking additional steps to ensure that Bank of America stops breaking the law.”

The CFPB said the misconduct took place between 2016 and 2020. During one three-month period, hundreds of loan officers reported that 100% of applicants chose not to provide demographic information, when in fact they were never asked, the bureau said. The $12 million fine will go to a victim relief fund.

Bank of America did not immediately respond to requests for comment.