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Consumer Compliance Outlook: First Issue 2019

Compliance Alert

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issues an interpretive and procedural rule to implement the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amendments in the Economic Growth Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act. On September 7, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) issued an interpretive rule to implement and clarify Section 104(a) of the Economic Growth Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA), which partially exempts certain insured depository institutions from the data collection and reporting requirements of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Under this amendment, if an insured depository institution originates fewer than 500 closed-end loans, or fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit, in each of the two preceding calendar years, it is partially exempt from reporting most of the expanded HMDA data fields for the respective types of loans.

The interpretive rule clarifies several HMDA issues related to the EGRRCPA amendment. First, the Bureau interpreted the amendment to be effective on May 24, 2018, the date the EGRRCPA was enacted. Second, only those closed-end loans and open-end lines of credit that would otherwise be reported under Regulation C will count toward the respective 500 loan threshold. Third, HMDA filers qualifying for the partial exemption can still choose to voluntarily report the exempt data fields, provided they include all other fields associated with that data field (i.e., all subset fields). For example, if a partially exempt institution optionally reports the property address for an exempt transaction, then it must report all other data fields that are part of the property address, such as city, state, and zip code.

Fourth, partial exemption is not available to institutionswhose Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating is “needs to improve” during its two most recent examinations or “substantial noncompliance” during the last examination. An institution should look to its CRA rating as of December 31 of the preceding calendar year to determine if its rating affects eligibility for the partial exemption.

Fifth, the rule emphasizes that because the Bureau had temporarily raised the HMDA reporting threshold for open-end lines of credit from 100 to 500 for 2018 and 2019, respectively, institutions that fall below this threshold will not report any HMDA data for these open-end lines of credit. In 2020, the threshold for collecting and reporting on open- end lines of credit is scheduled to revert to 100 loans, but the Bureau stated that it intends to revisit the 100 loan threshold during 2019.

Finally, the interpretive rule identifies the 26 data points that do not need to be collected and reported on those transactions covered by the partial exemption.

*The Age field was added by Section 1094 of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but the EGRRCPA amendment did not include this field in the partial exemption, so even banks qualifying for the partial exemption must still collect and report this new field.