WASHINGTON—Looking closely at regulatory relief provisions contained in the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155), CUNA is offering more detail around how it says the bill affects the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
Section 104 of the bill provides regulatory relief to small depository institutions that have originated less than 500 closed-end mortgage loans or less than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years by exempting them from certain disclosure requirements under HMDA.
“Section 104 does not exempt any previously covered institution from the mortgage loan data reporting requirements of HMDA that were in effect prior to Jan. 1, 2018. If a credit union originates at least 25 closed-end mortgage loans or 500 HELOCs in each of the preceding two calendar years, it is still subject to HMDA reporting,” CUNA said.
S. 2155 rolls back the rule to the state it was in on Dec. 31, 2017 before the new additional data collection requirements were implemented on Jan. 1, 2018, CUNA explained.
“For example, if a credit union originated between 25 and 500 closed end loans, it will report only the old HMDA data points that were in effect last year. And if you originate less than 500 HELOCs, you will not report this open-end data,” CUNA said.
What the Bill Does
According to CUNA’s analysis, section 104 of the bill does:
- Exempt small volume mortgage lenders from the expanded HMDA data reporting requirements that became effective on Jan. 1, 2018 if certain conditions are met.
- For closed-end mortgage reporting, the conditions require that the credit union has originated fewer than 500 of such loans in each of the preceding two calendar years.
- For home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), the credit union must have originated less than 500 home equity lines of credit in each of the preceding two calendar years.
A CFPB amended rule that became final in August 2017 already temporarily raised the HELOC threshold from 100 to 500 originations, so S. 2155 will not have any impact on the HELOC threshold in the short term, CUNA said.
The CFPB revised rule only temporarily raises the threshold to 500 for 2018 and 2019 for any HELOC reporting to allow the CFPB more time to assess the potential impact.
“Absent another rulemaking form the CFPB, only in 2020 will S. 2155 potentially come into play to keep the threshold at 500 for HELOC reporting,” stated CUNA, which added it is still waiting for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to officially amend and promulgate the regulation.