The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released its policy guidance describing the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act loan-level data it plans to publicly release in 2019. Significantly, in response to concerns raised by the American Bankers Association about the need to protect consumer privacy, the bureau announced that it would not release property addresses, applicants’ credit scores or automated underwriting results. As expected, the CFPB will release “certain information with reduced precision,” including borrower ages, loan amount and number of units in the dwelling.
In addition, the bureau also announced that it would begin the rulemaking process in 2019 to consider what HMDA data it will disclose in future years. ABA has long called for a formal rulemaking on the public disclosure of HMDA data, and will continue to work closely with the agency to ensure its concerns about consumer privacy are addressed.