Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Issues Statement on the Implementation of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act Amendments to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) issued the following statement:

On May 24, 2018, the President signed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (the Act), a section of which amends the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). [1] The Act provides partial exemptions for some insured depository institutions and insured credit unions from certain HMDA requirements. [2] 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, 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.

The Bureau expects later this summer to provide further guidance on the applicability of the Act to HMDA data collected in 2018. [3]

2018 Loan/Application Registers (LARs) formatting and submission

For all institutions filing HMDA data collected in 2018, the Act will not affect the format of the LARs:

• LARs will be formatted according to the previously-released 2018 Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA Data Collected in 2018 (2018 FIG). [4]
• 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 specified in a revised 2018 FIG that the Bureau expects to release later this summer.
• All LARs will be submitted to the same HMDA Platform. A beta version of the HMDA Platform for submission of data collected in 2018 will be available later this year for filers to test. [5]

Compliance statement

As announced in December 2017, the Bureau does not intend to require data resubmission for HMDA data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019, unless data errors are material. Furthermore, the Bureau does not intend to assess penalties with respect to errors in data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019. Collection and submission of the 2018 HMDA data will provide financial institutions an opportunity to identify any gaps in their implementation of amended Regulation C and make improvements in their HMDA compliance management systems for future years. Any examinations of 2018 HMDA data will be diagnostic to help institutions identify compliance weaknesses, and the Bureau will credit good-faith compliance efforts.

[1] HMDA is implemented by Regulation C, 12 CFR part 1003.

[2] Pub. L. 115-174, section 104(a) (to be codified at 12 USC 2803).

[3] 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.

[4] https://s3.amazonaws.com/cfpb-hmda-public/prod/help/2018-hmda-fig.pdf

[5] The FFIEC’s HMDA Platform and filing resources and tools are available at ffiec.cfpb.gov.  

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit www.consumerfinance.gov.