The OCC, FDIC, and CFPB have issued statements interpreting a portion of the recently enacted regulatory relief law, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. Among other changes, this law creates new partial exemptions from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The partial exemptions are for:

• Closed-end mortgage loans, if the institution originated fewer than five hundred closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years, and

• Open-end lines of credit, if the institution originated fewer than five hundred open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years.

The partial exemptions apply only if an institution also meets certain standards in its Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) ratings. If an institution qualifies for the partial exemption, it is relieved from the collection, recording, and reporting requirements for the data points in HMDA subsections 304(b)(5) and (6) — including many of the new data points added by the Dodd-Frank Act, such as the total points and fees, the value of the loan collateral, etc.  

This latest guidance states that all institutions will use the same format when submitting their loan application register (LAR); institutions qualifying for this partial exemption will enter an exemption code in LAR fields that they are not required to report. The CFPB will release revised filing instructions “later this summer” with the exact exemption code and additional guidance. Also, the CFPB will release a beta version of its HMDA Platform for testing purposes “later this year.”

The agencies’ guidance also restates their supervisory approach to the reporting of 2018 HMDA data: they do not intend to assess penalties for data errors, and examinations will credit institutions’ good-faith compliance efforts. Read the OCC, FDIC, and CFPB statements, and stay tuned for more information from the CFPB.