WASHINGTON–The Defense Manpower Data Center on Friday—as urged by NAFCU, CUNA and other trades—extended the registration deadline for financial institutions to seek direct access to the database for Military Lending Act covered-borrower checks.
NAFCU and seven other financial trades last week urged the Defense Department to extend the deadline from Feb. 1 to March 1. Instead, the DMDC has agreed to extend the deadline until Feb. 15.
In the letter the trades stated that the “additional time will allow more interested stakeholders to indicate whether they would like to connect directly to the DMDC database. This will allow the DMDC to better measure the demand for direct access to allow it to allocate its resources and respond to the demand so that creditors can comply with the regulation and continue to provide consumer credit services to military personnel and their families.”
NAFCU reported that the DMDC database is developing a web interface that will allow institutions direct access to the database to identify borrowers who are covered by the MLA rule. Direct connection through the interface is expected to be available and tested prior to the MLA compliance deadline of Oct. 3. Credit unions interested in direct access to the MLA database should e-mail the MLA Help Desk at dodhra.dodc-mb.dmdc.mbx.mla@mail.mil.