Articles by deBanked Staff

Undercover Agents Working for Federal Regulators Posed as Merchants, Inquired About Business Loans

If you want to get a sense of what CFPB oversight of small business financing is going to look like when it goes into effect in 2025, then consider the federal regulator just revealed that it hired undercover agents last year to pose as business owners, had them inquire about business loans, and recorded it all. All with the assistance of the DOJ.

Focused entirely on Nassau County, NY and Fairfax, VA, the undercover agents pretended their fake businesses did $100k – $400k in annual revenue and be open for less than 5 years with 700+ FICO. With what amounted to more than 100 total in-person visits across 23 financial institutions (all of which were bank branches) for the duration of the operation, the CFPB allegedly hoped to gauge potential racial discrimination with the lenders they spoke with.

The undercover agents, described as testers, were instructed to tell representatives at banks that they were “looking to expand their business and to inquire about financing through business loans and business lines of credit.”

“All calls and visits with the lenders were audio recorded,” states the official report issued by the CFPB. The CFPB paid close attention to whether or not bank representatives suggested alternative financing products and whether or not they encouraged or discouraged to do one thing versus another.

While anyone is free to opine on what the findings of this investigation actually were and the context of which they were found (FULL REPORT HERE), readers are reminded that the CFPB will be tasked with reviewing these very demographic metrics, like the ones they inquired about during this investigation, for almost all small business finance companies starting in July 2025 (even if you’re a broker). These regulations apply to revenue based financing providers just the same as lenders unless the incoming administration intervenes.

The CFPB’s role in small business finance was dictated in 2010 during the passage of Dodd-Frank, but it has taken nearly 15 years for the rules to finally go into effect. While the statute empowering the regulator to collect demographic data from small business finance companies does not specifically state that it has been granted any authority to bring enforcement actions based upon that data, the revelation that the regulator conducted an undercover operation that included them pretending to be business owners looking for loans across two states with the assistance of the Department of Justice should be a good indication of where things were at least planning to go. The current head of the CFPB, for example, Rohit Chopra, had expressed publicly that his plan was to wipe out all companies engaged in merchant cash advance. It is not known at this time who, if anyone, might replace Chopra under Trump. The last time Trump became president, the CFPB head that had been installed by Obama, famously claimed at the time that the President of the United States did not possess the authority to remove him. He was later removed.