WASHINGTON – Federal regulators are looking to clarify mortgage lending rules regulating financial institutions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week issued a proposal to clarify rules related to the 2015 updates to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The federal agency says its proposed changes would help clarify information related to collecting and reporting mortgage lending.
“The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shines a much-needed spotlight on the mortgage market, which is the largest consumer financial market in the world,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Today’s proposal reflects the Bureau’s ongoing and substantive engagement with stakeholders in the marketplace and will help [the] industry meet its new reporting obligations.”
Enacted in 1975, the law requires lenders to report home-loan information. The federal agency and the public at large can use the information to “monitor whether financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communities, to assist in distributing public-sector investment so as to attract private investment to areas where it is needed, and to identify possible discrimination lending patterns,” according to a release.
The proposed changes include clarification, technical corrections and changes to the regulation. A full copy of the proposed rule is available here.
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer.
