The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) published a notice pursuant to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) concerning the new Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) and the collection of expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) information about ethnicity and race in 2017.

The notice today basically indicates CFPB’s approval under ECOA of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA), as conservator for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association, revised and redesigned URLA issued on August 23, 2016.

The CFPB further is allowing advance collection of 2017 disaggregated ethnic and racial categories pursuant to HMDA, although such collection is not mandatory until January 1, 2018 under the new HMDA regulations.  The Bureau believes this will allow creditors to begin to implement the regulatory changes and improve their compliance processes before the new requirements become effective if they so choose.  This may be true for those creditors that are ready to permit mortgage applicants to self-identify using disaggregated ethnic and racial categories before January 1, 2018.

A copy of the Notice can be viewed here.