Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

American Bankers Association White Paper Addresses Concerns Over HMDA Expansion

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance HMDA CFPB ABA

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance

On May 2, the American Bankers Association (ABA) issued a white paper to the Treasury Department on the implementation of the 2015 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule as part of its continuing response to President Trump’s executive order outlining “core principles” for financial regulation (see previously issued Special Alert here). The white paper, HMDA – More Really is Less: The Data Fog Frustrates HMDA, presents several views held by the ABA including that the CFPB should (i) rescind requirements to collect any data fields not expressly required by HMDA; (ii) suspend the effective date of the 2015 HMDA rule until privacy and security concerns are addressed (see previously issued Special Alert here); (iii) exclude commercial loans from HMDA coverage; and (iv) revoke the new HMDA data elements added by the Dodd-Frank Act. The ABA noted that the Dodd-Frank Act added more than 13 new categories to the statutory HMDA data fields lenders are required to collect, and in the implementing regulation, Regulation C, the CFPB added 25 new data fields to the existing 23 fields. The ABA noted that the CFPB estimates that, in addition to existing costs of HMDA compliance, the additional annual costs of operations will be approximately $120.6 million conservatively (more if reporting quarterly) and lenders will incur a one-time additional cost of between $177 million and $326.6 million. Furthermore, the ABA states there still remains a need to address the “significant” privacy issues presented by the “vast trove of data points added by Dodd-Frank,” and that “the collection and transfer and warehousing of greatly increased and more sensitive data will necessitate even more robust and costlier private sector and government systems.” However, the ABA noted the Bureau has not initiated rulemaking to address the privacy issues presented.

Notably, last month, the CFPB issued a proposal in the Federal Register to amend the 2015 HMDA rule (see previously issued Special Alert here). The changes are primarily for the purpose of clarifying data collection and reporting requirements, and most of the clarifications and revisions would take effect in January 2018. The deadline to submit comments on the CFPB’s proposal is May 25, 2017.