The federal bank regulatory agencies today issued a joint notice of proposed rulemaking to amend their respective Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations primarily to conform to changes made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
Since 1995, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have conformed certain definitions in their respective CRA regulations to the scope of loans reported under Regulation C and believe that continuing to do so produces a less-burdensome CRA performance evaluation process. In particular, the agencies are proposing to amend their CRA regulations to revise the definitions of “home mortgage loan” and “consumer loan,” as well as the public file content requirements. These revisions would maintain consistency between the CRA regulations and the recent changes to Regulation C, which generally become effective on January 1, 2018.
In addition, the draft proposal contains technical revisions and would remove obsolete references to the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
Comments on the proposal will be accepted for 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. The agencies anticipate that the proposed amendments to their CRA regulations will become effective also on January 1, 2018.