The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued a final rule making several technical corrections and clarifications to the expanded data collection under Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, as well as temporarily raising the threshold at which banks are required to report data on home equity lines of credit.
In finalizing the technical corrections, the bureau took note of at least one compliance challenge discussed in the American Bankers Association’s comment letter and backtracked on a proposal to define multifamily dwellings as including properties in multiple locations. However, the bureau declined to adopt other ABA suggestions that would improve compliance and clarity and adopted the rules largely as proposed, including a provision ABA characterized as “significant and substantive” that would increase the number of institutions subject to HMDA.
Under the rule as originally written, banks originating more than 100 HELOCs would have been generally required to report under HMDA, but the final rule temporarily raises that threshold to 500 HELOCS for calendar years 2018 and 2019, allowing the bureau time to assess whether to make the adjusted threshold permanent. This provision takes effect on Jan. 1, along with compliance for most HMDA expansion provisions. For more information, contact ABA’s Rob Rowe.
