Banking agencies, in correction, include more comments in preamble of November 2017 CRA rule

The three federal banking agencies have published a final rule that corrects the preamble of their November 2017 final Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rule to reflect input from two comment letters mistakenly omitted from mention in the original notice.

The 2017 rule revised the existing definitions of “home mortgage loan” and “consumer loan,” related cross references, and the public file content requirements to conform to earlier revisions made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). It also removed obsolete references to the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The comments added through the agencies’ correction notice, scheduled for publication Tuesday in the Federal Register, resulted in no change to the regulatory text, and the agencies – the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve system (Fed), and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) – have waived the notice and comment procedure of the Administrative Procedure Act. They can do so if the notice and comment period is “impracticable, unnecessary or contrary to the public interest” and the agencies provide a statement explaining why. They also waived a 30-day effective date delay that usually accompanies the publication of a final rule.

The November 2017 rule took effect Jan. 1.

Community Reinvestment Act rule correction (addition to preamble)

Final rule in Nov. 24, 2017, Federal Register