Jim Nussle
WASHINGTON—Two-thirds of all credit unions that would have been subject to home equity line of credit reporting under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) will receive direct exemptions, according to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau final rule published in the Federal Register this week.
CUNA is calling the outcome “a significant victory” resulting from the trade association’s “360-degree advocacy” efforts.
CUNA said it strongly advocated for the increased threshold in a comment letter, which applies to credit unions and community banks originating 500 or less home equity lines of credit through calendar years 2018 and 2019.The previous threshold was 100.
"The increased threshold is the direct result of the combined efforts of CUNA, the Leagues and credit unions’ strong advocacy, and we thank the CFPB for finalizing it," said CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle. "We continue to believe that an expanded exemption for credit unions makes more sense, and will continue our work to achieve this goal going forward."
This is a temporary increase so the CFPB can consider whether to permanently adjust the threshold for data collected beginning Jan. 1, 2020, CUNA explained.
CUNA maintained an expanded exemption for credit unions makes more sense given there has been no evidence of wrongful conduct and credit union HELOC data would ultimately be inconclusive because of their field of membership requirements.
CUNA said it believes elimination of those institutions with a “relatively low” number of HELOCs would be statistically insignificant to the collected data and would not hamper the bureau’s ability to monitor an institution.
According to CUNA, the exemption provides relief to 480 of 718 credit unions around the country that issue more than 100 but fewer than 500 HELOCs.