On December 18, 2015, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued two final rules related to annual threshold adjustments under the implementing regulations for the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Truth in Lending Act. Under the HMDA and its implementing Regulation C, most mortgage lenders in metropolitan areas are required to collect, report and disclose data about mortgage loan applications, originations and purchases. Under the HMDA final rule, the asset-size exemption for banks, saving associations and credit unions under Regulation C will remain at $44 million, meaning that institutions with assets totaling this amount or less as of December 31, 2015, are exempt from collecting HMDA data in 2016.
Regulation Z, which implements TILA, provides for an asset-size threshold for certain creditors to qualify for an exemption from the requirement to establish an escrow account for a higher-priced mortgage loan. In 2013, the CFPB established the threshold at $2 billion, which adjusts automatically each year based on the annual percentage change in the average of Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers for each 12-month period ending in November. Under the TILA final rule, the asset-size threshold exemption for certain creditors will decrease from $2.060 billion to $2.052 billion for 2016. The adjustment will also lower the threshold for small-creditor and balloon payment qualified mortgages.
Both the HMDA and TILA final rules will be effective January 1, 2016.
The CFPB press release is available at: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-announces-two-annual-threshold-adjustments/.
The final rule implementing HDMA is available at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201512_cfpb_hmda_regulation-c-adjustment-to-asset-size-exemption-threshold.pdf and the final rule implementing the TILA is available at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201512_cfpb_hmda_truthin-lending-act-regulation-z-adjustment-to-asset-size-exemption.pdf.
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