CFPB Issues Proposal to Clarify Mortgage Data Rule

Updated October 6, 2026. This 2017 proposal has since been finalized. The outcome, with dates taken from the Federal Register, is under What did the final rule change? at the end of this post. The original announcement follows unchanged.

Proposal Would Clarify Requirements and Help Companies Comply

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today issued a proposal to facilitate compliance with the 2015 updates to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule. The changes proposed today would help financial institutions comply with the 2015 HMDA Final Rule by clarifying the information they are required to collect and report about their mortgage lending.

"The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shines a much-needed spotlight on the mortgage market, which is the largest consumer financial market in the world," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "Today's proposal reflects the Bureau's ongoing and substantive engagement with stakeholders in the marketplace, and will help industry meet its new reporting obligations."

HMDA, which was originally enacted in 1975, requires many lenders to report information about the home loans for which they receive applications or that they originate or purchase. The public and regulators can use the information to monitor whether financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communities, to assist in distributing public-sector investment so as to attract private investment to areas where it is needed, and to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.

As directed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFPB updated the HMDA regulation in 2015 to improve the quality and type of data reported by financial institutions. Most of the updated requirements take effect in January 2018, and the industry is working to bring operations into compliance. Through public outreach and engagement the CFPB has identified opportunities to clarify parts of the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, which would help financial institutions comply.

Today's proposal contains a number of clarifications, technical corrections, and minor changes to the HMDA regulation. These include clarifying certain key terms, such as "temporary financing" and "automated underwriting system." The proposal would also, for example, establish transition rules for reporting certain loans purchased by financial institutions. Another proposed change would facilitate reporting the census tract of a property, using a new geocoding tool the CFPB plans to provide online. 

The CFPB is committed to well-tailored and effective regulations and has sought to carefully calibrate its efforts to ensure consistency with respect to consumer financial protections across the financial services marketplace. The CFPB seeks input from a wide range of stakeholders and invites the public to submit written comments on the proposal. The proposal will be open for public comment for 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

A copy of the proposed rule is available here: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201704_cfpb_NPRM_HMDA.pdf

What did the final rule change?

The CFPB finalized this proposal in a rule published in the Federal Register on September 13, 2017 (82 FR 43088). That rule also adopted a separate July 2017 proposal on open-end lines of credit. Most of it took effect on January 1, 2018, with some amendments effective January 1, 2019 and others January 1, 2020. It clarified terms including temporary financing and automated underwriting system, set transition rules for reporting loan purpose and the loan originator identifier on certain purchased loans, and protected institutions that report an incorrect census tract obtained from the Bureau's geocoding tool after entering an accurate address. It also raised the open-end reporting threshold to 500 lines of credit for 2018 and 2019.