Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: Loan Origination Threshold Changes

In view of the recent threshold adjustment outlined in regulation C with respect to closed-end mortgage loans data reporting requirements of financial institutions, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OCC, has published a new Bulletin (OCC Bulletin 2023-5) in this context. Therein, the OCC briefly describes the „new“ requirement and outlines its supervisory approach for the previous three years during which the „old threshold“ as explained below applied.
In detail, national banks, including foreign ones, savings associations, and credit unions must usually report data about their housing related lending activity, specifically with respect to closed-end mortgage loans, if more than a certain number of loans have been granted in the two previous years – the so-called threshold.
This threshold was reduced from 100 contracts in „either of the past two years“ to 25 contracts on December 21, 2022. This reduction followed a recent rulemaking of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which rendered the in 2020 implemented threshold increase to 100 invalid which implies that the increase – so to speak – never took place.
In this context, the OCC notes that it will not penalize any institution that has originated more than 25 but less than 100 loans between 2020 and 2022 and has not reported on those loans in accordance with regulation C. However, the OCC will review the reports and notify affected institutions so that they can take adequate measures to adjust their reporting processes accordingly to ensure future compliance.