CFPB releases HMDA formatting tool and updates filing instructions

Agency Rule-Making & Guidance CFPB HMDA Examination Mortgages

On February 1, the CFPB launched their 2018 Loan/Application Register (LAR) Formatting Tool (the “Tool”). According to the website, the Tool is intended to assist small volume lenders in creating an electronic file to submit to the HMDA Platform. The Tool is only intended to be used by institutions that are not able to format their HMDA data into a “pipe delimited text file.” The Bureau also announced minor updates to the 2018 Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the CFPB’s supervisory examinations of 2018 HMDA data will be “diagnostic” to help “identify compliance weaknesses, and will credit good-faith compliance efforts.” The CFPB does not intend to impose penalties with respect to errors reported in the 2018 data.