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.