Bill Would Increase Reporting Threshold On Open-End Lines Of Credit

WASHINGTON—Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) has introduced a bill that would increase the reporting threshold for open-end lines of credit and closed-end mortgages under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
The bill, the "Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act of 2017" (HR 2954), would exempt depository institutions that have originated fewer than 2,000 open-end lines of credit and 1,000 closed-end mortgages in the previous two years from HMDA’s reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The bill would also withdraw the new and modified HMDA data points found in the
CFPB's rule, stated NAFCU in its analysis.  
House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) is an original cosponsor.
"NAFCU thanks Rep. Emmer for introducing this important legislation that would ease the compliance burden for credit unions that will result from the HMDA rule requirements," said NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler. "We also thank Chairman Luetkemeyer for cosponsoring this legislation. We look forward to working with the House and other members of Congress on this bill and other efforts to secure more credit union regulatory relief."
This bill is similar to legislation introduced earlier this month by Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). Their bill, under the same title, would exempt depository institutions that have originated fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit and closed-end mortgages in the previous two years from HMDA’s reporting and recordkeeping requirements, NAFCU explained.
Rounds and Heitkamp also wrote CFPB Director Richard Cordray following the introduction of their bill echoing NAFCU's call for a one-year delay in the Bureau's revised HMDA rule, NAFCU noted.
Most of the new HMDA requirements become effective Jan. 1, 2018. They affect home equity lines of credit, establish transactional thresholds for coverage and expand the number of HMDA data points to be collected from credit unions.
NAFCU said it has long urged the CFPB to use the authority it has under the Dodd-Frank Act to provide credit unions more exemptions from its rules. In May, NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger also urged the CFPB to delay the HMDA rule for one year.
 
NCUA Acting Chairman J. Mark McWatters echoed the call for relief in May, urging Cordray to use the Dodd-Frank exemption authority more and specifically highlighting the burdens presented under the 2015 revision to the HMDA rule, noted NAFCU.