On December 21, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a public statement regarding implementation of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), noting that it plans to reconsider aspects of the mortgage data rule.
The HMDA, enacted in 1975, requires many lenders to report information concerning applications they receive for particular mortgage loans and other loans they purchase. The Dodd-Frank Act directed the CFPB to expand the collection of this data, prompting the Bureau to issue a rule in 2015 that required financial institutions to collect and report additional mortgage information beginning in 2018. The CFPB then issued a final rule in August of 2017 regarding this collection of information.
Despite this relatively recent final rulemaking, the CFPB has announced that it “intends to engage in a rulemaking to reconsider various aspects of the 2015 HMDA Rule such as the institutional and transactional coverage tests and the rule’s discretionary data points.” According to the CFPB, this rulemaking will likely re-examine, among other things, lending-activity criteria that determines whether data and transactions must be reported.
At this point, it is unclear how the regulations will change, but it appears likely that the modifications will reduce the amount of information about borrowers that banks and other lenders are required to submit to regulators. Further, the number and types of institutions required to report certain information could be reduced. For now, lenders will have to comply with the rule coming into effect, though the CFPB has said that it “does not intend to require data resubmission unless data errors are material.” Moreover, the Bureau doesn’t intend to assess penalties with respect to data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019, and will only use examinations of 2018 data as diagnostic, to aid in identifying compliance weaknesses.
This announcement may signal a new approach by the CFPB, which traditionally has taken an expansive view toward regulation of financial institutions, particularly as this news comes less than a month after Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, took the reins at the CFPB. This new rulemaking should be closely tracked so financial institutions may appropriately adjust their compliance programs to this shifting landscape.