In testimony, consumer bureau acting director outlines coming reconsideration of HMDA rules

Reporting thresholds, transactional coverage under review

Reconsidering various aspects of the 2015 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) regulations will be the focus of a rulemaking the federal consumer financial protection agency intends to open, the agency’s acting director told a House committee Wednesday.

In written testimony submitted to the House Financial Services Committee, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Mick Mulvaney said the rule’s reporting thresholds and transactional coverage will be reconsidered in the rulemaking. He also said the proposal would reconsider data points now included in the regulation “not mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act” (referring the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010).

Mulvaney also said that – in working with the federal banking regulators – that supervisory examinations of 2018 data collected under the HMDA rules “will be diagnostic.”

“Our goal is to help companies identify any weaknesses, and we will credit good-faith efforts to comply,” Mulvaney said.

He that more than 5,800 institutions last year submitted their data using the CFPB’s on-line platform.

“We are not pre-judging the outcome of any rulemaking; instead, I share our recent efforts with you to demonstrate that under new leadership the Bureau is willing to revisit existing rules to find ways to ease undue burdens and protect consumer choice,” he said. “This we will do efficiently, effectively, and transparently. We will structure ourselves and conduct Bureau operations in a way that reduces redundancy and makes the best use of resources.”

Testimony of Mick Mulvaney, Acting Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, before the House Committee on Financial Services, April 11, 2018