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OCC Bulletin 2018-19 | July 5, 2018

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

To

Chief Executive Officers and Compliance Officers of National Banks, Federal Savings Associations, and Federal Branches and Agencies; Department and Division Heads; All Examining Personnel; and Other Interested Parties

Summary

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 Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is issuing this bulletin to inform national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and agencies (collectively, banks), and all OCC examining personnel about the current status of implementation for provisions in the Act regarding partial exemptions for some insured depository institutions from certain HMDA requirements.

Note for Community Banks

This bulletin applies to all OCC-supervised banks subject to HMDA data collection and reporting requirements.

Background

The Act provides partial exemptions for some insured depository institutions and insured credit unions from certain HMDA requirements.2 The following 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 of Consumer Financial Protection (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 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 OCC does not intend to require data resubmission for HMDA data collected in 2018 and reported in 2019, unless data errors are material. Furthermore, the OCC 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 banks with an opportunity to identify any gaps in their implementation of the 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 banks identify compliance weaknesses, and the OCC will credit good-faith compliance efforts.

Further Information

Please contact Vonda J. Eanes, Director for CRA and Fair Lending Policy, Compliance Risk Policy Division, at (202) 649-5470.


Grovetta N. Gardineer
Senior Deputy Comptroller for Compliance and Community Affairs

1 HMDA’s implementing regulation is at 12 CFR 1003 (Regulation C).

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 https://ffiec.cfpb.gov.

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