Bureau Does Not Intend to Assess Penalties for Errors in Data Collected in 2018, and Plans to Reconsider Aspects of Mortgage Data Rule
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today issued a public statement announcing that the Bureau does not intend to require data resubmission unless data errors are material or assess penalties with respect to errors for data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The Bureau also announced it intends to open a rulemaking to reconsider various aspects of the Bureau’s 2015 HMDA rule, such as the institutional and transactional coverage tests and the rule’s discretionary data points. Beginning on January 1, 2018, financial institutions will submit HMDA data collected in 2017 and beyond using the Bureau’s new online platform.
HMDA, which was originally enacted in 1975, requires many lenders to report information with respect to applications they receive for certain types of mortgage loans and certain loans that they purchase. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act directed the Bureau to expand the data collected and reported under HMDA to include additional information regarding, for example, mortgage loan underwriting and pricing, and authorized the Bureau to require other data. To that end, the Bureau issued a rule in 2015 that requires financial institutions to collect and report additional mortgage information beginning on January 1, 2018. In August 2017, the Bureau issued a final rule making technical corrections, clarifying certain reporting requirements, and increasing the threshold for collecting and reporting data on home equity lines of credit for two years.
The Bureau recognizes the significant systems and operational challenges needed to meet the impending requirements under the rule. Accordingly, for HMDA data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019, the Bureau does not intend to require financial institutions to resubmit data unless data errors are material, or to pay penalties with respect to data errors. Accordingly, collection and submission of the 2018 HMDA data will provide financial institutions an opportunity to focus on identifying any gaps in their implementation of the additional requirements and making improvements in their HMDA compliance management systems for future years. The Bureau expects that any supervisory examinations of 2018 HMDA data will be diagnostic, to help institutions identify compliance weaknesses, and will credit good-faith compliance efforts.
The Bureau also 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. More specifically, the rulemaking may re-examine lending-activity criteria that determine whether institutions are required to report mortgage data. The rulemaking may also look at adjusting the new requirements to report certain types of transactions. Finally, the rulemaking may re-assess the additional information that the rule requires beyond the new data points specified under the Dodd-Frank Act.
For data collected in 2017, financial institutions will submit their data in 2018 in accordance with current Regulation C. Beginning with data collected in 2017, institutions will submit data using the Bureau’s new HMDA Platform. The online platform will be used to upload financial institutions’ loan and application registers, review edits, certify the data, and submit the data for the filing year.
Similar statements regarding HMDA implementation are being coordinated with the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration.
The Bureau’s public statement on HMDA compliance is available at:https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_statement-with-respect-to-hmda-implementation_122017.pdf