Creditors may not consider the sex, marital status, race, national origin, or religion of the applicant in the evaluation process. A creditor may not consider whether the applicant has a telephone listing in the applicant's name, but may consider whether there is a telephone in the applicant's residence. In general, a creditor may not consider the age of the applicant unless the applicant is not old enough to enter into a binding contract or under certain other circumstances. The fact that a person is elderly may be used as a favorable consideration. Age may be used in a consideration that the applicant's income may be reduced because of retirement.
Special rules apply to credit scoring.
See Section 202.6 reproduced below for illustration. C.F.R. Section 202.6 Rules concerning evaluation of applications. Except as otherwise provided in the Act and this regulation, a creditor may consider any information obtained, so long as the information is not used to discriminate against an applicant on a prohibited basis. Except as otherwise provided in the Act and this regulation, a creditor shall not take a prohibited basis into account in any system of evaluating the creditworthiness of applicants. In any empirically derived, demonstrably and statistically sound, credit scoring system, a creditor may use an applicant's age as a predictive variable, provided that the age of an elderly applicant is not assigned a negative factor or value.