Federal Regulatory Update - September 17 2018

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (“CFPB”) issued an interpretive and procedural rule (the “Rule”) to clarify provisions of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (“Act”) which amended certain requirements of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (“HMDA”), effective September 7, 2018.

The Act amended HMDA by adding partial exemptions from HMDA’s requirements for certain insured depository institutions and insured credit unions. The Rule clarifies:

• That insured depository institutions and insured credit unions covered by a partial exemption have the option of reporting exempt data fields as long as they report all data fields within any exempt data point for which they report data;
• That only loans and lines of credit that are otherwise HMDA reportable count towards the thresholds for the partial exemptions;
• Which of the data points are covered by the partial exemptions; and
• The exception to the partial exemptions for negative Community Reinvestment Act examination history.

The Rule also designates a non-universal loan identifier for partially exempt transactions for institutions that choose not to report a universal loan identifier.

The CFPB anticipates that it will initiate a notice-and-comment rulemaking to incorporate these interpretations and procedures into Regulation C (HMDA’s implementing regulation) and further implement the Act.

The entire rule may be found at: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/policy-compliance/rulemaking/final-rules/partial-exemptions-from-requirements-of-home-mortgage-disclosure-act-under-regulation-c/