NCUA issued a Regulatory Alert (23-RA-01) indicating it will take a flexible supervisory and enforcement approach to court-ordered changes to the 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order Sept. 23, 2022 vacating the portion of the HMDA final rule that amended the reporting threshold for closed-end mortgage loans. The decision means the threshold for reporting data on closed-end mortgage loans is now 25 loans in each of the two preceding calendar years—the threshold established by the 2015 HMDA Final Rule—rather than the 100 loan threshold set by the 2020 HMDA Final Rule.

“The NCUA recognizes that credit unions affected by this change may need time to implement or adjust policies, procedures, systems, and operations to achieve compliance with these reporting requirements,” NCUA Chairman Todd Harper states in the Regulatory Alert.

“The NCUA will not initiate enforcement actions or cite HMDA violations for failures to report closed-end mortgage loan data collected in 2022, 2021, or 2020 for credit unions that meet Regulation C’s other coverage requirements and originated at least 25 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years but fewer than 100 closed-end mortgage loans in either or both of the two preceding calendar years,” he adds.

This approach is similar to the one outlined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a December blog post.

CUNA wrote to Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC) agencies in December, calling on all agencies to issue a formal statement in the Federal Register explicitly stating that, ”calendar year 2023 will be a supervisory transition period during which the agencies will expect ‘good faith’ efforts to comply with the pre-2020 HMDA rule, and that the agencies will not cite HMDA violations or initiate enforcement actions against lenders that act in good faith to develop and implement reporting programs.”