Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection issues HMDA statement
On July 5, 2018, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) announced its intention to provide further guidance later this summer on the applicability of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (the Act) to data collected in 2018 pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
On the technical front, the statement confirms that 2018 Loan/Application Registers formatting and submission will remain the same. If an institution does not report information for a certain data field due to the Act’s partial exemptions, the institution will enter an exemption code for the field (code information will be included in a revised Filing Instructions Guide also expected to be released later this summer). Later this year, filers will be able to test submission using a beta version of the HMDA platform.
To recap, the Act provides partial exemptions for some insured depository institutions and insured credit unions from certain HMDA requirements. The partial exemptions are generally available to insured depository institutions and insured credit unions:
- For closed-end mortgage loans if the institution originated fewer than 500 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years.
- For open-end lines of credit if the institution originated fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years.
For closed-end mortgage loans or open-end lines of credit subject to the partial exemptions outlined above, the Act states that the “requirements of [HMDA section 304(b)(5) and (6)]” shall not apply. Accordingly, for these transactions, those institutions are exempt from the collection, recording, and reporting requirements for some, but not all, of the data points specified in current Regulation C which implements HMDA.
The reference to HMDA section 304(b)(5) and (6) provides the actual details of the HMDA relief contained in the Act. The data fields which were included in section 304(b)(5) and (6), and will not need to be reported by the institutions to which the partial exemption applies, are:
- Total points and fees
- Difference between APR and benchmark index
- Term in months of any prepayment penalty
- Value of real property collateral
- Term in months of any introductory rate
- Presence of negative amortization or like feature
- Term in months of loan
- Application channel
- Unique Identifier of the loan originator
- Universal loan identifier
- Parcel number for collateral
- Credit score of the mortgage applicants
In addition to the loan-level details listed above, HMDA sections 304(b)(5) and (6) each include a provision giving discretionary authority to the Bureau in rulemaking for “such other information as the Bureau may require.” The discretionary authority added data fields such as lender credit information and AUS result(s).
The partial exemptions are not available to insured depository institutions that do not meet certain Community Reinvestment Act performance evaluation rating standards. Guidance will include information on how this provision will be implemented.
The Bureau’s notice can be viewed in its entirety here: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bureau-consumer-financial-protection-issues-statement-implementation-economic-growth-regulatory-relief-and-consumer-protection-act-amendments-home-mortgage-disclosure-act
Comments are closed.