All in HMDA

On November 28, 2023, the CFPB ordered Bank of America to pay a $12 million penalty for submitting false mortgage lending information to the federal government under a long-standing federal law. The CFPB found that hundreds of Bank of America loan officers failed to ask applicants certain demographic questions that are required under federal law, and then falsely reported that the applicants had declined to answer. 

On October 10, 2023, the CFPB filed a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that Freedom Mortgage Corporation submitted legally-required mortgage loan data that was riddled with errors, violating both the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and a 2019 consent order. It can be recalled that in August 2023 the CFPB fined Freedom $1.75 million for paying illegal kickbacks for mortgage loan referrals.

On April 13, 2023, the OCC announced that the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) had issued the 2023 edition of A Guide to HMDA Reporting: Getting It Right! for Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)-related data collected in 2023 and reported in 2024. This longstanding compliance resource has regularly been used by financial institutions as a “go-to” HMDA resource as it can help financial institutions better understand HMDA requirements, including the data collection and reporting provisions.

On March 15, 2023, the CFPB published the 2023 HMDA Institutional Coverage Chart  and 2023 HMDA Transactional Coverage Chart. The updated charts are effective January 1, 2023. The updated coverage charts reflect the reduced 25 closed-end loans in each of the previous two calendar years threshold for reporting closed-end applications and loans.

On February 3, 2023, the FDIC issued a Financial Institution Letter to inform supervised institutions of recent changes regarding the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reporting threshold for closed-end mortgage loans and the FDIC’s supervisory approach for enforcing related requirements. According to the FDIC, it does not intend to initiate enforcement actions or cite HMDA violations for certain failures to report closed-end mortgage data collected in the last three years.