Representatives of the National Automobile Dealers Association and the American Financial Services Association tell Automotive News’s John Huetter a study conducted by Southern Methodist and Rice universities that found evidence of discriminatory auto lending practices relies on flawed methodology and incomplete data.

The study included consumers who applied for auto loans in the U.S. between 2005 and 2017. Researchers found minority applicants were subject to lower approval rates and higher interest rates, on average, than nonminority applicants with comparable creditworthiness.

No conclusions were drawn as to whether the disparities were driven by intent on the part of dealership or finance source policies or personnel.

AFSA’s statement cast doubt on all disparate impact studies, noting credit applications are designed to be “color-blind” and significant numbers of borrowers apply online. NADA’s statement, from Vice President of Public Affairs Amy Hunter Wright, went a step further, casting doubt on researchers’ grasp of the auto finance model.

“This research contains significant substantive errors that make its conclusions completely unreliable,” she writes. “It’s clear the authors do not fully understand automotive finance because they failed to control for numerous factors that play a significant role in each transaction, including whether the consumer has a trade-in, whether that trade is underwater, whether the consumer is swapping an old car payment for a new one or adding an additional car payment to their debt, the list goes on.”

Read more at Automotive News