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OCC updates HMDA examination procedures
On December 17, the OCC released revised interagency HMDA examination procedures for HMDA compliance. The revised examination procedures address changes made to the effective dates for banks meeting or exceeding either the closed-end mortgage loans or the open-end lines of credit loan-volume threshold in each of the two preceding calendar years. Effective July 1, 2020, a bank that “originated at least 100 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years, or originated at least 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years meets or exceeds the loan-volume threshold.” Effective January 1, 2022, the temporary 500 open-end lines of credit provision expires, and a bank that “originated at least 100 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years, or originated at least 200 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years” will now meet or exceed the loan-volume threshold. The revised examination procedures also outline changes to partial exemptions for an application or covered loan. A partial exemption applies to: (i) applications for originations of, and purchases of closed-end mortgage loans when the bank originated fewer than 500 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years, and (ii) applications for originations of, and purchases of open-end lines of credit provided the bank originated fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years.
Bulletin 2021-63 rescinds OCC Bulletin 2010-8, “Compliance Policy: Revised Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Examination Procedures,” as well as OCC Bulletin 2019-19, “Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: Revised Interagency Examination Procedures.”
CFPB publishes fall 2021 rulemaking agenda
On December 13, the Office of Information And Regulatory Affairs released the CFPB’s fall 2021 rulemaking agenda. According to a Bureau announcement, the information released represents regulatory matters the Bureau plans to pursue during the period from November 2, 2021 to October 31, 2022. Additionally, the Bureau stated that the latest agenda reflects continued rulemakings intended to further its consumer financial protection mission and help advance the country’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Promoting racial and economic equity and supporting underserved and marginalized communities’ access to fair and affordable credit continue to be Bureau priorities.
Key rulemaking initiatives include:
- Small Business Rulemaking. This fall, the Bureau issued its long-awaited proposed rule (NPRM) for Section 1071 regulations, which would require a broad swath of lenders to collect data on loans they make to small businesses, including information about the loans themselves, the characteristics of the borrower, and demographic information regarding the borrower’s principal owners. (Covered by a Buckley Special Alert.) The NPRM comment period goes through January 6, 2022, after which point the Bureau will review comments as it moves to develop a final rule. Find continuing Section 1071 coverage here.
- Consumer Access to Financial Records. The Bureau noted that it is working on rulemaking to implement Section 1033 of Dodd-Frank in order to address the availability of electronic consumer financial account data. The Bureau is currently reviewing comments received in response to an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) issued fall 2020 regarding consumer data access (covered by InfoBytes here). Additionally, the Bureau stated it is monitoring the market to consider potential next steps, “including whether a Small Business Review Panel is required pursuant to the Regulatory Flexibility Act.”
- Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the Bureau published an ANPR in March 2019 seeking feedback on the unique features of PACE financing and the general implications of regulating PACE financing under TILA (as required by Section 307 of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which amended TILA to mandate that the Bureau issue certain regulations relating to PACE financing). The Bureau noted that it continues “to engage with stakeholders and collect information for the rulemaking, including by pursuing quantitative data on the effect of PACE on consumers’ financial outcomes.”
- Automated Valuation Models (AVM). Interagency rulemaking is currently being pursued by the Bureau, Federal Reserve Board, OCC, FDIC, NCUA, and FHFA to develop regulations for AVM quality control standards as required by Dodd-Frank amendments to FIRREA. The standards are designed to, among other things, “ensure a high level of confidence in the estimates produced by the valuation models, protect against the manipulation of data, seek to avoid conflicts of interest, require random sample testing and reviews,” and account for any other appropriate factors. An NPRM is anticipated for June 2022.
- Amendments to Regulation Z to Facilitate LIBOR Transition. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the Bureau issued a final rule on December 7 to facilitate the transition from LIBOR for consumer financial products, including “adjustable-rate mortgages, credit cards, student loans, reverse mortgages, [and] home equity lines of credit,” among others. The final rule amended Regulation Z, which implements TILA, to generally address LIBOR’s eventual cessation for most U.S. dollar settings in June 2023, and establish requirements for how creditors must select replacement indices for existing LIBOR-linked consumer loans. The final rule generally takes effect April 1, 2022.
- Reviewing Existing Regulations. The Bureau noted in its announcement that it decided to conduct an assessment of a rule implementing HMDA (most of which took effect January 2018), and referred to a notice and request for comments issued last month (covered by InfoBytes here), which solicited public comments on its plans to assess the effectiveness of the HMDA Rule. Additionally, the Bureau stated that it finished a review of Regulation Z rules implementing the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, and that “[a]fter considering the statutory review factors and public comments,” it “determined that the CARD Act rules should continue without change.”
Notably, there are 14 rulemaking activities that are listed as inactive on the fall 2021 agenda, including rulemakings on overdraft services, consumer reporting, student loan servicing, Regulation E modernization, abusive acts and practices, loan originator compensation, and TILA/RESPA mortgage disclosure integration.
CFPB seeks input on HMDA
On November 16, the CFPB issued a notice and request for comments regarding the rules for implementing the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The Request for Information (RFI) solicits public comments on its plans to assess the effectiveness of the HMDA Rule, focusing on, among other things: (i) institutional and transactional coverage; (ii) data points; (iii) benefits of the new data and disclosure requirements; and (iv) operational and compliance costs. According to the CFPB, the RFI follows a 2021 HMDA report, which found that mortgage lenders deny credit and charge higher interest rates to Black and Hispanic applicants more often than white applicants, and a July 2021 report that analyzed 2020 HMDA loan data and examined the differences in mortgage characteristics across Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups. (Covered previously by InfoBytes here and here.) Additionally, the RFI notes that the Bureau expects to issue a report on the findings of its assessment of the HMDA Rule by January 1, 2023. The Bureau also notes that it “plans to review recent changes to the rule and evaluate their effectiveness,” and that the assessment “will strengthen the CFPB’s ability to maintain a fair, competitive, and non-discriminatory mortgage market.” The deadline for submitting comments on the RFI is 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.
CFPB releases FAQs on HMDA requirements
On November 10, the CFPB updated its FAQs on the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reporting requirements to clarify institutional and transactional coverage. The updated FAQs, among other things, highlighted that the final rule, issued in April 2020, established the closed-end mortgage loan threshold to be 100 in each of the two preceding calendar years, effective July 2020, and the open-end line of credit threshold at 200 in each of the two preceding calendar years, effective January 1, 2022, upon the expiration of the temporary threshold of 500 open-end lines of credit. (Covered by InfoBytes here). Additionally, the FAQs presented circumstance-based questions and answers applying the threshold rules to scenarios with varying originations of closed-end mortgage loans and open-end lines of credit and addressed voluntary reporting.
On November 12, the CFPB sent a reminder to institutions that the threshold for reporting HMDA data for open-end lines of credit will adjust to 200 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years effective January 1, 2022. According to the reminder, starting January 1, 2022, an institution that meets the new threshold and all other Regulation C institutional coverage criteria, must collect, record, and report data about its open-end lines of credit.
NCRC files fair housing complaints with HUD against mortgage lenders
On November 1, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) announced it had filed fair housing complaints with HUD against two mortgage lenders for allegedly engaging in discriminatory behavior against prospective Black clients. The first complaint is based on a matched-pair test conducted in the Seattle/Tacoma, Washington area, which allegedly demonstrated that lending specialists provided different lending product information to prospective borrowers based on race. NCRC also alleged that the lender’s HMDA data showed lending behaviors consistent with discriminatory practices. NCRC also conducted matched-pair testing on a second lender’s practices in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. According to the complaint, the lender also allegedly provided different information and more favorable services to White testers. An examination of the lender’s HMDA data similarly showed alleged discriminatory lending patterns.
CFPB updates 2022 HMDA filing instructions
On October 20, the CFPB released three updates regarding the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2022 that must be reported in 2023. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the CFPB released the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA, which states that there are no significant changes to the submission process and that the required data fields to be collected and reported have not changed. Instructions for quarterly reporting can be found in the Supplemental Quarterly Reporting Guide.
On October 25, the CFPB reminded that, "[f]or data collected beginning January 1, 2022, financial institutions should use census tract information provided in the 2020 Census." In addition, the FFIEC’s Geocoder will utilize census tract information from the 2020 Census beginning January 1, 2022.
CFPB releases 2022 HMDA filing instructions
On September 9, the CFPB released the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2022 that must be reported in 2023. The guide states that there are no significant changes to the submission process and that the required data fields to be collected and reported have not changed. Instructions for quarterly reporting can be found in the Supplemental Quarterly Reporting Guide, which was issued the same day. According to the most recent HMDA reporting guide by the FFIEC, the next HMDA report is due for entities on March 1, 2022.
CFPB releases HMDA data report
On August 19, the CFPB released a Data Point report titled, 2020 Mortgage Market Activity and Trends, which finds that the total number of closed-end originations, as well as applications, increased substantially between 2019 and 2020. The 2020 HMDA data encompasses the third year of data that incorporates amendments to HMDA by Dodd-Frank. The changes include new data points, revisions to some existing data points, and authorizing the CFPB to require new data points. As covered by a Buckley Special Alert, the CFPB issued a final rule that implemented significant changes that reflected the needs of homeowners and the evolution in the mortgage market.
According to the report, trends in mortgage applications and originations found in the 2020 HMDA data point include:
- 4,472 financial institutions reported at least one closed-end record in 2020, which is a decrease from 5,505 in 2019;
- “The number of home-purchase loans secured by site-built, one-to-four-family properties increased by about 387,000, whereas the number of refinance loans increased by 149.1 percent from 3.4 million in 2019 to 8.4 million in 2020”;
- In 2020, the number of open-end line-of-credit originations, besides reverse mortgages, fell by 16.6 percent to 869,000, from 1.04 million in 2019;
- “The share of loans secured by closed-end home-purchase loans for site-built, one-to-four-family, first lien, principal-residence properties for Black borrowers increased in 2020 and the share of refinance loans for Asian borrowers increased in 2020”; and
- In 2020, the refinance boom largely continued the trends since the second quarter of 2019.
According to CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio, “initial observations about the nation’s mortgage market in 2020 are welcome news, with improvements in the overall volume of home-purchase and refinance loans compared to 2019.” He also noted that “Black and Hispanic borrowers continued to have fewer loans, [are] more likely to be denied than non-Hispanic White and Asian borrowers, and pay higher median interest rates and total loan costs. It is clear from that data that our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be robust if it remains uneven for mortgage borrowers of color.”
FFIEC releases 2020 HMDA data
On June 17, the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) released the 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data on mortgage lending transactions at 4,475 covered institutions. Available data products include: (i) the HMDA Dynamic National Loan-Level Dataset, which is updated on a weekly basis to reflect late submissions and resubmissions; (ii) the Snapshot National Loan-Level Dataset, which contains the national HMDA datasets as of a fixed date, in the case of 2020 data, May 1, 2021; (iii) the Aggregate and Disclosure Reports, which provides summaries on individual institutions and geographies; (vi) the HMDA Data Browser where users can customize tables and download datasets for further analysis; and (v) the modified Loan/Application Registers for filers of 2020 HMDA data.
The data currently includes “a total of 48 data points providing information about the applicants, the property securing the loan or proposed to secure the loan in the case of non-originated applications, the transaction, and identifiers.” The 2020 data includes information on 22.7 million home loan applications, 14.5 million of which resulted in loan originations, and 2.8 million purchased loans. Among the observations from the data relative to the prior year: (i) the number of reporting institutions decreased by roughly 19 percent; (ii) closed-end loan applications increased by roughly 63 percent, while open-end line of credit applications decreased by 19 percent; (iii) the total number of originated closed-end loans increased by roughly 67 percent; (iv) refinance originations for 1-4 family properties increased by 150 percent; (v) home purchase lending increased by almost 7 percent; and (vi) non-depository, independent mortgage companies accounted for approximately 60 percent of first-lien owner-occupied home purchase loans (up from approximately 56 percent in 2019).
CFPB analyzes HMDA data of small to medium-size lenders
On June 14, the CFPB released a report analyzing differences in certain loan and borrower characteristics and general lending patterns for lenders below and above the 100-loan closed-end threshold set by the 2020 HMDA final rule. As previously covered by InfoBytes, last year the Bureau issued a final rule permanently raising coverage thresholds for collecting and reporting data about closed-end mortgage loans under HMDA from 25 to 100 loans.
While the Bureau notes that the “analysis is necessarily limited and preliminary,” the report’s findings, which analyzed publicly available HMDA data from 2019 for which the 25-loan threshold still applied, show, among other things, that (i) lenders that are exempt under the 2020 final rule (those whose origination volume exceeds the 25-loan threshold but falls below the 100-loan threshold) “do not appear to be more likely to lend to Black and non-White Hispanic borrowers than larger volume lenders”; (ii) these lenders may be more likely to lend to non-natural person borrowers such as trusts, partnerships, and corporations; (iii) a higher percentage of these loans are secured by properties in low-to-moderate income (LMI) census tracts, properties in rural areas, second liens, and investment properties; (iv) these lenders tend to make more loans to borrowers who appear to have higher income levels than large lenders’ borrowers; and (v) a slightly higher percentage of loans made by these lenders are secured by manufactured homes than by lenders with origination volumes over 300. According to the Bureau’s blog post, the “findings are consistent with a possible explanation that lenders below the 2020 rule’s 100-loan closed-end threshold are making more loans to investors buying up property in [LMI] census tracts for rental or resale.”