MBA Expresses Support for HMDA Exemption Bill

The Mortgage Bankers Association sent a letter of support for a House bill that would provide exemptions for key mortgage products and lenders who originate them.

H.R. 2954, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2954), would amend the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to expand exemptions on itemized disclosures to HMDA added by the Dodd-Frank Act. The proposed bill exempts from these disclosures closed-end mortgages and open-end lines of credit for those banks, credit unions and non-bank mortgage originators (including both single- and multifamily lenders) that originated fewer than 500 closed-end mortgages or 500 open-end lines of credit in the last two years, respectively.

In the letter to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., MBA Senior Vice President of Legislative and Political Affairs Bill Killmer said MBA appreciates that the scope of the exemption includes residential non-bank lenders–many of whom are small, community-based institutions–which today originate half of all U.S. mortgages.

“The regulatory burden that non-bank lenders bear as a result of HMDA reporting is no less onerous than is the burden borne by those other institutions,” Killmer said. “Therefore, this broad application of this proposed relief appropriately reduces the regulatory burden placed upon lenders via increased HMDA reporting requirements, regardless of business model or regulatory charter.”