The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week announced updates to its rulemaking agenda. Items on the agenda and their associated timelines were submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in early March, prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus and the subsequent economic downturn.
Significantly, the bureau noted that it is in the pre-rule stage on its Section 1071 rulemaking, which concerns the collection of credit application data for women-owned, minority-owned and small businesses. The CFPB is currently working to conduct a survey to determine the one-time cost lenders would incur to report this data. A rulemaking on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing is also expected to get underway in October 2020.
Two Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rulemakings are planned for September, including a proposed rule to govern the collection of HMDA data points that were added or revised by the 2015 final rule and a proposal for disclosing these data. The CFPB also said it plans to finalize a rule in October to update and modernize communication practices for third-party debt collectors subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It also said it would finalize a rule to address the protection and disclosure of confidential information the CFPB obtains through its work.
Other proposals are expected on appraisals, a higher-priced mortgage loan escrow exemption, amendments to Regulation Z to facilitate the Libor transition and a joint rulemaking on the role of supervisory guidance. Also on the agenda was a proposed rule to amend the definition of “qualified mortgage” under the Truth in Lending Act, which was released last month.
The CFPB also added a new item, artificial intelligence, to its list of long-term actions, noting that it is monitoring use of AI and machine learning and will evaluate whether a rulemaking or other action would be appropriate.