Federal Register / Vol. 84, No. 21 / Thursday, January 31, 2019 / Notices 649 

1 Disclosure of Loan-Level HMDA Data, 82 FR 

44586 (Sept. 25, 2017) (hereinafter Proposed Policy 

Guidance). 

2See id. at 44596–44610. 

lives affect consumers’ ability to 

successfully obtain and use card credit? 

(e) The Safety and Soundness of Credit 

Card Issuers 

How is the credit cycle evolving? 

What, if any, safety and soundness risks 

are present or growing in this market, 

and which entities are 

disproportionately affected by these 

risks? How, if at all, do these safety and 

soundness risks to entities relate to 

long-term indebtedness on the part of 

some consumers, or changes in 

consumers’ ability to manage their 

debts? Has the impact of the CARD Act 

on safety and soundness changed over 

the past two years? 

(f) The Use of Risk-Based Pricing for 

Consumer Credit Cards 

How has the use of risk-based pricing 

for consumer credit cards changed since 

the Bureau reported on the credit card 

market in 2017? What has driven those 

changes or lack of changes? Has the 

impact of the CARD Act on risk-based 

pricing changed over the past two years? 

How have CARD Act provisions 

relating to risk-based pricing impacted 

(positively or negatively) the evolution 

of practices in this market? 

(g) Consumer Credit Card Product 

Innovation 

How has credit card product 

innovation changed since the Bureau 

reported on the credit card market in 

2017? What has driven those changes or 

lack of changes? Has the impact of the 

CARD Act on product innovation 

changed over the past two years? 

How have broader innovations in 

finance, such as (but not limited to) new 

products and entrants, evolving digital 

tools, greater availability of and new 

applications for consumer data, and 

new technological tools (like machine 

learning), impacted the consumer credit 

card market, either directly or 

indirectly? In what ways do CARD Act 

provisions encourage or discourage 

innovation? In what ways do 

innovations increase or decrease the 

impact of certain CARD Act provisions, 

or change the nature of those impacts? 

Dated: December 21, 2018. 

Kathleen Kraninger, 

Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection. 

[FR Doc. 2019–00487 Filed 1–30–19; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4810–AM–P 

BUREAU OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL 

PROTECTION 

[Docket No. CFPB–2017–0025] 

Disclosure of Loan-Level HMDA Data 

AGENCY: Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection. 

ACTION: Final policy guidance. 

SUMMARY: The Bureau of Consumer 

Financial Protection (Bureau) is issuing 

final policy guidance describing 

modifications that the Bureau intends to 

apply to the loan-level data that 

financial institutions report under the 

Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) 

and Regulation C before the data is 

disclosed to the public. This final policy 

guidance applies to HMDA data 

compiled by financial institutions in or 

after 2018 and made available to the 

public by the Bureau beginning in 2019. 

DATES: The Bureau released this final 

policy guidance on its website on 

December 21, 2018. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Benjamin Cady and David Jacobs, 

Counsels; Laura Stack, Senior Counsel, 

Office of Regulations, at 202–435–7700 

or https://

reginquiries.consumerfinance.gov/. If 

you require this document in an 

alternative electronic format, please 

contact CFPB_Accessibility@cfpb.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Summary 

HMDA requires certain financial 

institutions to collect, report, and 

disclose data about their mortgage 

lending activity. HMDA is implemented 

by Regulation C, 12 CFR part 1003. In 

2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 

Reform and Consumer Protection Act 

(Dodd-Frank Act) amended HMDA and 

transferred HMDA rulemaking authority 

and other functions from the Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System (Board) to the Bureau. Among 

other changes, the Dodd-Frank Act 

expanded the scope of information 

relating to mortgage applications and 

loans that must be collected, reported, 

and disclosed under HMDA and 

authorized the Bureau to require by rule 

financial institutions to collect, report, 

and disclose additional information. In 

2015, the Bureau published a final rule 

amending Regulation C (2015 HMDA 

Final Rule) to implement the DoddFrank Act amendments to HMDA and 

make other changes, including adding a 

number of new data points. Most 

provisions of the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule took effect on January 1, 2018, and 

apply to data financial institutions 

collect beginning in 2018 and report 

beginning in 2019. With respect to the 

public disclosure of HMDA data, the 

Bureau interpreted HMDA, as amended 

by the Dodd-Frank Act, to require that 

the Bureau use a balancing test to 

determine whether and how HMDA 

data should be modified prior to its 

disclosure to protect applicant and 

borrower privacy while also fulfilling 

HMDA’s public disclosure purposes. On 

September 25, 2017, the Bureau 

published proposed policy guidance 

that described the Bureau’s balancing 

test and how the Bureau proposed to 

apply it to the loan-level HMDA data 

made available to the public.1

After considering the comments the 

Bureau received on the proposal, the 

Bureau is publishing this final policy 

guidance describing the loan-level 

HMDA data it intends to make available 

to the public, including modifications to 

be applied to the data. The Bureau 

intends to make these modifications to 

data financial institutions collected in 

2018 when the Bureau discloses that 

data in 2019. The Bureau is making 

these determinations based upon the 

information currently available to it, 

including the comments received on the 

proposal, with respect to the risks and 

benefits associated with the disclosure 

of loan-level HMDA data. The Bureau 

intends to commence a rulemaking in 

the spring of 2019 that will enable it to 

identify more definitively modifications 

to the data that the Bureau determines 

to be appropriate under the balancing 

test and incorporate these modifications 

into a legislative rule. The rulemaking 

will reconsider the determinations 

reflected in this final policy guidance 

based upon the Bureau’s experience 

administering the final policy guidance 

in 2019 and on a new rulemaking 

record, including data concerning the 

privacy risks posed by the disclosure of 

the HMDA data and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

In developing this final policy 

guidance, the Bureau consulted with the 

prudential regulators (the Board, the 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 

(FDIC), the National Credit Union 

Administration (NCUA), and the Office 

of the Comptroller of the Currency 

(OCC)); the Department of Housing and 

Urban Development (HUD); and the 

Federal Housing Finance Agency 

(FHFA). 

For the reasons described below and 

in the proposed policy guidance,2 the 

Bureau is modifying its proposed policy 

guidance to change the proposed 


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3Binning, sometimes known as recoding or 

interval recoding, allows data to be shown clustered 

into ranges rather than as precise values. Top- and 

bottom-coding mask any value that is above or 

below a certain threshold. 

4FRED Economic Data, ‘‘Mortgage Debt 

Outstanding by Type of Property: One- to FourFamily Residences (MDOTP1T4FR),’’ Fed. Res. 

Bank of St. Louis, Bd. of Govs. of the Fed. Res. Sys., 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDOTP1T4FR (last 

updated Sept. 24, 2018). 

5U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Selected Housing 

Characteristics: 2012–2016 American Community 

Survey 5-Year Estimates,’’ https://

factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/16_

5YR/DP04/0100000US (last visited Dec. 3, 2018). 

6 12 U.S.C. 2801(b). 

7See Home Mortgage Disclosure, 54 FR 51356, 

51357 (Dec. 15, 1989) (recognizing the purpose of 

identifying possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforcing antidiscrimination statutes in light of 

the 1989 amendments to HMDA, which mandated 

the reporting of the race, sex, and income of loan 

applicants). 

treatment of the following data fields: 

(1) The ratio of the applicant’s or 

borrower’s total monthly debt to the 

total monthly income relied on in 

making the credit decision; (2) the 

number of individual dwelling units 

related to the property securing the 

covered loan or, in the case of an 

application, proposed to secure the 

covered loan; and (3) the number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan, that are 

income-restricted pursuant to Federal, 

State, or local affordable housing 

programs. 

Pursuant to this final policy guidance, 

the Bureau intends to disclose loanlevel HMDA data reported under 

Regulation C with the following 

modifications to the data: First, the 

Bureau intends to modify the public 

loan-level HMDA data to exclude: (1) 

The universal loan identifier or nonuniversal loan identifier; (2) the date the 

application was received or the date 

shown on the application form; (3) the 

date of action taken by the financial 

institution on a covered loan or 

application; (4) the address of the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan; (5) the credit 

score or scores relied on in making the 

credit decision; (6) the unique identifier 

assigned by the Nationwide Mortgage 

Licensing System and Registry for the 

mortgage loan originator; and (7) the 

result generated by the automated 

underwriting system used by the 

financial institution to evaluate the 

application. The Bureau also intends to 

exclude free-form text fields used to 

report the following data: (1) Applicant 

or borrower race; (2) applicant or 

borrower ethnicity; (3) the name and 

version of the credit scoring model 

used; (4) the principal reason or reasons 

the financial institution denied the 

application, if applicable; and (5) the 

automated underwriting system name. 

Second, the Bureau intends to modify 

the public loan-level HMDA data to 

reduce the precision of most of the 

values reported for the following data 

fields. With respect to the amount of the 

loan or the amount applied for, the 

Bureau intends to disclose the midpoint 

for the $10,000 interval into which the 

reported value falls. The Bureau also 

intends to indicate whether the reported 

value exceeds the applicable dollar 

amount limitation on the original 

principal obligation in effect at the time 

of application or origination, as 

provided under 12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(2) and 

12 U.S.C. 1454(a)(2). With respect to the 

age of an applicant or borrower, the 

Bureau intends to bin reported values 

into the following ranges: 25 to 34; 35 

to 44; 45 to 54; 55 to 64; and 65 to 74; 

bottom-code reported values under 25; 

top-code reported values over 74; and 

indicate whether the reported value is 

62 or higher.3 With respect to the ratio 

of the applicant’s or borrower’s total 

monthly debt to the total monthly 

income relied on in making the credit 

decision, the Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification reported values 

greater than or equal to 36 percent and 

less than 50 percent. The Bureau also 

intends to bin reported values into the 

following ranges: 20 percent to less than 

30 percent; 30 percent to less than 36 

percent; and 50 percent to less than 60 

percent; bottom-code reported values 

under 20 percent; and top-code reported 

values of 60 percent or higher. With 

respect to the value of the property 

securing the covered loan or, in the case 

of an application, proposed to secure 

the covered loan, the Bureau intends to 

disclose the midpoint for the $10,000 

interval into which the reported value 

falls. With respect to the number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan, the Bureau 

intends to bin reported values into the 

following ranges: 5 to 24; 25 to 49; 50 

to 99; 100 to 149; and 150 and over. And 

with respect to the number of individual 

dwelling units related to the property 

securing the covered loan or, in the case 

of an application, proposed to secure 

the covered loan, that are incomerestricted pursuant to Federal, State, or 

local affordable housing programs, the 

Bureau intends to disclose reported 

values as a percentage, rounded to the 

nearest whole number, of the value 

reported for the total number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan. 

This final policy guidance is exempt 

from notice and comment rulemaking 

requirements under the Administrative 

Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 553(b), 

and is non-binding. As previously 

noted, the Bureau believes that it is 

beneficial to commence a separate 

notice and comment legislative 

rulemaking under the APA to consider 

and adopt a more definitive approach to 

disclosing HMDA data to the public in 

future years. The Bureau will commence 

such a rulemaking in May 2019. 

II. Background 

A. HMDA’s Purposes and the Public 

Disclosure of HMDA Data 

HMDA requires certain financial 

institutions to collect, report, and 

disclose data about their mortgage 

lending activity. The home mortgage 

market is the country’s largest market 

for consumer financial products and 

services, with $10 trillion in mortgage 

debt outstanding.4 Homeownership is a 

critical source of wealth-building for 

families and communities. As of 2016, 

48 million consumers had a mortgage, 

representing 64 percent of all owneroccupied homes.5

HMDA is implemented by Regulation 

C, 12 CFR part 1003. HMDA identifies 

its purposes as providing the public and 

public officials with sufficient 

information to enable them to determine 

whether financial institutions are 

serving the housing needs of the 

communities in which they are located, 

and to assist public officials in their 

determination of the distribution of 

public sector investments in a manner 

designed to improve the private 

investment environment.6 In 1989, 

following amendments to HMDA, the 

Board recognized a third HMDA 

purpose of identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes, 

which now appears with HMDA’s other 

purposes in Regulation C.7 Today, 

HMDA data are the preeminent data 

source that regulators, researchers, 

economists, industry, and advocates use 

to achieve HMDA’s purposes and to 

analyze the mortgage market. 

Public disclosure of HMDA data is 

central to the achievement of HMDA’s 

purposes. Since HMDA’s enactment in 

1975, the data that financial institutions 

are required to disclose under HMDA 

and Regulation C have been expanded; 

public access to HMDA data has 

increased; and the formats in which 

HMDA data have been disclosed have 

evolved. As enacted and implemented 


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8Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, Public 

Law 94–200, section 304, 89 Stat. 1124, 1125–28 

(Dec. 31, 1975); 12 CFR 203.5(a)(1) (effective June 

28, 1976). 

9Housing and Community Development Act of 

1980, Public Law 96–399, section 340, 94 Stat. 

1614, 1657–59 (1980). 

10Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and 

Enforcement Act (FIRREA), Public Law 101–73, 

section 1211, 103 Stat. 183, 524–26 (1989). 

11 54 FR 51356, 51361 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

12Home Mortgage Disclosure Act; Disclosure 

Statements and Aggregate MSA Reports; 

Availability of Data, 55 FR 27886, 27888 (July 6, 

1990). 

13 Id. 

14Housing and Community Development Act, 

Public Law 102–550, section 932, 106 Stat. 3672, 

3889–91 (1992). 

15 12 CFR 203.5(a)–(e) (effective Mar. 1, 1993). 

16 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 

Protection Act, Public Law 111–203, 124 Stat. 1376, 

1980, 2035–38, 2097–2101 (2010). 

17These agencies are the prudential regulators— 

the Board, the FDIC, the NCUA, and the OCC—and 

HUD. Together with the Bureau, these agencies are 

referred to herein as ‘‘the agencies.’’ 

18Section 304(h)(3)(A) provides that a 

modification under section 304(h)(1)(E) shall apply 

to information concerning ‘‘(i) credit score data . . . 

in a manner that is consistent with the purpose 

described in paragraph (1)(E); and (ii) age or any 

other category of data described in paragraph (5) or 

(6) of subsection (b), as the Bureau determines to 

be necessary to satisfy the purpose described in 

paragraph (1)(E), and in a manner consistent with 

that purpose.’’ 12 U.S.C. 2803(h)(3)(A). 

19Home Mortgage Disclosure (Regulation C), 80 

FR 66128 (Oct. 28, 2015); see also Home Mortgage 

Disclosure (Regulation C), 80 FR 69567 (Nov. 10, 

2015) (making technical corrections). 

in Regulation C, HMDA required 

covered financial institutions to make 

available to the public at their home and 

branch offices a ‘‘disclosure statement’’ 

reflecting aggregates of certain mortgage 

loan data.8 In 1980, Congress amended 

HMDA section 304 to require that the 

Federal Financial Institutions 

Examination Council (FFIEC) 

implement a system to increase public 

access to the data required to be 

disclosed under the statute, including a 

‘‘central depository of data’’ in each 

metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The 

1980 HMDA amendments also required 

the FFIEC to compile annually, for each 

MSA, aggregate data by census tract for 

all financial institutions required to 

disclose data under HMDA. The 1980 

amendments further required the FFIEC 

to produce tables indicating, for each 

MSA, aggregate lending patterns for 

various categories of census tracts 

grouped according to location, age of 

housing stock, income level, and racial 

characteristics.9

In 1989, Congress amended HMDA to 

require that financial institutions 

collect, report, and disclose data 

concerning the race, sex, and income of 

applicants and borrowers, as well as 

data on loan applications, in addition to 

originations and purchases.10 In 

implementing these amendments in 

Regulation C, the Board required 

financial institutions to report HMDA 

data to Federal regulators on a loan-byloan and application-by-application 

basis using the ‘‘loan/application 

register’’ format.11 In 1990, the FFIEC 

issued a notice announcing that it 

would make all reported HMDA data 

available to the public in a loan-level 

format, after deleting three fields to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy: 

application or loan number, application 

date, and action taken date.12 The FFIEC 

stated that it believed public disclosure 

of the reported loan-level HMDA data to 

be ‘‘consistent with the congressional 

intent to maximize the utilization of 

lending data.’’ 13 The FFIEC first 

disclosed the reported loan-level HMDA 

data to the public in October 1991. 

In 1992, Congress amended HMDA to 

add section 304(j), which required that 

each financial institution make available 

to the public its ‘‘loan application 

register information’’ for each year as 

early as March 31 of the succeeding 

year, as required under regulations 

prescribed by the Board.14 The Board 

implemented this amendment by 

requiring that financial institutions 

make their ‘‘modified’’ loan/application 

registers available to the public after 

deleting the same three fields deleted 

from the loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed by the FFIEC.15

B. The Dodd-Frank Act and 

Amendments to HMDA and Regulation 

C 

In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act amended 

HMDA and transferred HMDA 

rulemaking authority and other 

functions from the Board to the 

Bureau.16 Among other changes, the 

Dodd-Frank Act expanded the scope of 

information relating to mortgage 

applications and loans that must be 

collected, reported, and disclosed under 

HMDA and authorized the Bureau to 

require by rule financial institutions to 

collect, report, and disclose additional 

information. The Dodd-Frank Act 

amendments to HMDA also added new 

section 304(h)(1)(E), which directs the 

Bureau to develop regulations, in 

consultation with the agencies 

identified in section 304(h)(2),17 that 

‘‘modify or require modification of 

itemized information, for the purpose of 

protecting the privacy interests of the 

mortgage applicants or mortgagors, that 

is or will be available to the public.’’ 

Section 304(h)(3)(B), also added by the 

Dodd-Frank Act, directs the Bureau to 

‘‘prescribe standards for any 

modification under paragraph (1)(E) to 

effectuate the purposes of [HMDA], in 

light of the privacy interests of mortgage 

applicants or mortgagors. Where 

necessary to protect the privacy 

interests of mortgage applicants or 

mortgagors, the Bureau shall provide for 

the disclosure of information . . . in 

aggregate or other reasonably modified 

form, in order to effectuate the purposes 

of [HMDA].’’ 18

On October 28, 2015, the Bureau 

published the 2015 HMDA Final Rule to 

implement the Dodd-Frank Act 

amendments and make other changes, 

including adding a number of new data 

points.19 Most provisions of the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule took effect on January 

1, 2018, and apply to data financial 

institutions collect beginning in 2018 

and report beginning in 2019. The 2015 

HMDA Final Rule addressed the public 

disclosure of HMDA data in two ways. 

First, the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

shifted public disclosure of HMDA data 

entirely to the agencies. Beginning with 

HMDA data compiled in 2017, financial 

institutions were no longer required to 

provide their modified loan/application 

registers and disclosure statements 

directly to the public. Instead, they were 

required only to provide a notice 

advising members of the public seeking 

their data that the data may be obtained 

on the Bureau’s website. In addition to 

reducing burden on financial 

institutions, this shift of responsibility 

to the agencies eliminated risks to 

financial institutions associated with 

errors in preparing their modified loan/ 

application registers that could result in 

the unintended disclosure of data. This 

shift of responsibility also permitted the 

Bureau to consider modifications to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy 

that preserve data utility but that may be 

burdensome for financial institutions to 

implement. Finally, this shift of 

responsibility allowed for easier 

adjustment of modifications as privacy 

risks and potential uses of HMDA data 

evolve. 

Second, the Bureau interpreted 

HMDA, as amended by the Dodd-Frank 

Act, to require that the Bureau use a 

balancing test to determine whether and 

how HMDA data should be modified 

prior to its disclosure to the public to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy 

while also fulfilling HMDA’s public 

disclosure purposes. The Bureau 

interpreted HMDA to require that public 

HMDA data be modified when the 

release of the unmodified data creates 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy 


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20 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

21See 82 FR 44586 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

22Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and 

Consumer Protection Act, Public Law 115–174, 

section 104(a), 132 Stat. 1296 (2018). The EGRRCPA 

provided, among other things, that the requirements 

of HMDA section 304(b)(5) and (6) (which requires 

collection and reporting of certain data points and 

provides the Bureau discretion to require additional 

data points) shall not apply to closed-end mortgage 

loans of an insured depository institution or 

insured credit union if the institution originated 

fewer than 500 closed-end mortgage loans in each 

of the two preceding calendar years. The EGRRCPA 

also included a similar exemption with respect to 

open-end lines of credit. 

23Partial Exemptions from the Requirements of 

the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Under the 

Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer 

Protection Act (Regulation C), 83 FR 45325 (Sept. 

7, 2018). 

24The Bureau interpreted the partial exemption 

to cover 26 of the 48 HMDA data points, including 

12 data points that the Bureau added to Regulation 

C in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule to implement data 

points specifically identified in HMDA section 

304(b)(5)(A) through (C) or (b)(6)(A) through (I), and 

14 data points that were not found in Regulation C 

prior to the Dodd-Frank Act and that the Bureau 

required in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule pursuant to 

its discretionary authority under HMDA sections 

304(b)(5)(D) and (b)(6)(J). 

25See 82 FR 44586, 44590 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

26See id. at 44592–95. 27See id. at 44596–44610. 

interests that are not justified by the 

benefits of such release to the public in 

light of HMDA’s statutory purposes.20

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule’s 

interpretation of HMDA section 

304(h)(1)(E) and 304(h)(3)(B) to require 

a balancing test imposed binding 

obligations on the Bureau to evaluate 

the HMDA data, individually and in 

combination, to assess whether and how 

HMDA data should be modified prior to 

its disclosure to the public to protect 

applicant and borrower privacy while 

also fulfilling HMDA’s public disclosure 

purposes. 

On September 25, 2017, the Bureau 

published proposed policy guidance 

that described the Bureau’s balancing 

test and how the Bureau proposed to 

apply it to the loan-level HMDA data 

made available to the public beginning 

in 2019, with respect to data compiled 

by lenders in or after 2018.21

On May 24, 2018, the President 

signed into law the Economic Growth, 

Regulatory Relief, and Consumer 

Protection Act (EGRRCPA), which 

amended HMDA by adding partial 

exemptions from HMDA’s data 

collection and reporting requirements 

for certain insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions.22

On September 7, 2018, the Bureau 

published an interpretive and 

procedural rule to implement and 

clarify the EGRRCPA’s requirements 

(2018 HMDA Final Rule).23 Among 

other things, the Bureau clarified that 

institutions covered by a partial 

exemption have the option of reporting 

exempt data points as long as they 

report all data fields that the specific 

data point comprises. The Bureau also 

clarified which of the data points in 

Regulation C are covered by the partial 

exemptions.24 The partial exemptions 

apply beginning with the 2018 HMDA 

data, which institutions must report to 

the Bureau by March 1, 2019. 

III. The Balancing Test 

As noted above, in the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule, the Bureau interpreted 

HMDA to require that public HMDA 

data be modified when the disclosure of 

the unmodified data creates risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy interests 

that are not justified by the benefits of 

such disclosure to the public in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. The Bureau included 

in the proposed policy guidance a 

detailed description of the balancing 

test and its proposed application, 

including the benefits of public 

disclosure, the risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy that may be created by 

public disclosure, and the Bureau’s 

approach to balancing these benefits 

and risks, including through modifying 

some of the data to be disclosed. 

As described in more detail in the 

proposal,25 under the balancing test, the 

disclosure of the loan-level HMDA 

dataset creates risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy interests only where: 

(1) At least one data field or a 

combination of data fields substantially 

facilitates the identification of an 

applicant or borrower, and (2) at least 

one data field or combination of data 

fields discloses information about the 

applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive. At the individual data field 

level, a field may create ‘‘reidentification risk’’ by substantially 

facilitating the identification of an 

applicant or borrower in the HMDA data 

(for example, because it may be used to 

match a HMDA record to an identified 

record), or may create ‘‘risk of harm or 

sensitivity’’ by disclosing information 

about the applicant or borrower that is 

not otherwise public and may be 

harmful or sensitive.26

Where the public disclosure of the 

unmodified loan-level HMDA dataset 

would create risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy, the balancing test 

requires that the Bureau consider the 

benefits of disclosure to HMDA’s 

purposes and, where these benefits do 

not justify the privacy risks the 

disclosure would create, modify the 

dataset to appropriately balance the 

privacy risks and disclosure benefits. 

An individual data field is a candidate 

for potential modification under the 

balancing test if its disclosure in 

unmodified form would create a risk of 

re-identification or a risk of harm or 

sensitivity. 

The Bureau explained in the proposal 

that, with respect to the HMDA data that 

financial institutions will report to the 

agencies under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule, it initially determined public 

disclosure of the unmodified loan-level 

dataset, as a whole, would create risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy 

interests. The Bureau stated that this 

was due to the presence in the dataset 

of individual data fields that the Bureau 

believed would create re-identification 

risk and the presence of individual data 

fields that the Bureau believed are not 

currently public and would create a risk 

of harm or sensitivity. The Bureau thus 

applied the balancing test to determine 

whether and how it should modify the 

HMDA data financial institutions must 

collect and report under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule before it is disclosed 

to the public. Based on its analysis, the 

Bureau initially determined it would 

have to modify the loan-level HMDA 

data before it disclosed that data to the 

public. The Bureau also stated it 

initially determined the modifications 

to the loan-level HMDA dataset 

proposed in the proposed policy 

guidance would reduce risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and 

appropriately balance them with the 

benefits of disclosure for HMDA’s 

purposes. 

For the reasons described below and 

in the proposed policy guidance,27 the 

Bureau is modifying its proposed policy 

guidance to change the proposed 

treatment of the following data fields: 

(1) The ratio of the applicant’s or 

borrower’s total monthly debt to the 

total monthly income relied on in 

making the credit decision (debt-toincome ratio); (2) the number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan (total units); 

and (3) the number of individual 

dwelling units related to the property 

securing the covered loan or, in the case 

of an application, proposed to secure 

the covered loan, that are incomerestricted pursuant to Federal, State, or 

local affordable housing programs 

(affordable units). The Bureau 

determines that public disclosure of the 

unmodified loan-level dataset, as a 

whole, would create risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy interests and that 

the loan-level HMDA data must be 

modified before the data is disclosed to 


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28As described below in part IV.B and C, the 

Bureau will not include on the modified loan/ 

application registers (1) an indication of whether 

the reported loan amount exceeds the applicable 

dollar amount limitation on the original principal 

obligation in effect at the time of application or 

origination as provided under 12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(2) 

and 12 U.S.C. 1454(a)(2) or (2) information about 

the MSA or Metropolitan Division in which the 

property securing or proposed to secure the loan is 

located. This information will be included in the 

annual loan-level disclosure of all reported HMDA 

data combined. 

29 12 CFR 203.5(c) (effective Mar. 1, 1993) 

(identifying the data a financial institution must 

delete from its modified loan/application register 

prior to making it available to the public). 

30These commenters cited a 2017 research paper 

in support of their statement that attaching a 

borrower’s name and address to a HMDA record can 

be achieved in over 80 percent of cases. See 

Anthony Yezer, ‘‘Personal Privacy of HMDA in a 

World of Big Data,’’ at 4 (Geo. Wash. U., Inst. for 

Int’l Econ. Policy, Working Paper No. IIEP–WP– 

2017–21, 2017). In this paper, the author states that, 

in a particular census tract that he identified as 

presenting low re-identification risk compared to 

others in the same county, he was able to re-identify 

72 percent of borrowers with loans by the same 

lender by matching the 2014 public HMDA data to 

public records. Id. at 14–16. He also describes 

several projects in which academic and government 

researchers matched HMDA data to other data 

sources—some to private datasets, others to public 

records—and achieved up to a 75 percent match 

rate. Id. at 11–14. It is unclear which research 

supports the author’s claim that re-identification of 

HMDA data disclosed under the Board’s disclosure 

regime ‘‘can be achieved in over 80% of cases.’’ Id. 

at 3. 

31The Bureau used the term ‘‘adversary’’ in the 

proposed policy guidance to refer to persons that 

may attempt to re-identify the HMDA data. See, e.g., 

Nat’l Inst. of Standards & Tech., ‘‘De-Identification 

of Personal Information (2015),’’ available at http:// 

nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2015/NIST.IR.8053.pdf 

(using ‘‘adversary’’ to refer to an entity attempting 

to re-identify data). 

the public. The Bureau further 

determines, based on the information 

currently available to it, that the 

modifications described in this final 

policy guidance will reduce risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and 

appropriately balance them with the 

benefits of disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. This final policy 

guidance describes the data the Bureau 

intends to disclose on each financial 

institution’s modified loan/application 

register as well as in the combined loanlevel data the agencies make available to 

the public each year.28

IV. Comments Received and the 

Bureau’s Responses 

The Bureau received 26 comments on 

the proposed policy guidance. These 

included general comments on the 

Bureau’s proposal; views on the 

proposed treatment of particular data 

fields; and comments on other topics. 

The majority of the comments received 

did not address how the Bureau should 

treat specific data fields, and many 

comments opposing or expressing 

concern with the Bureau’s proposal did 

not provide any evidence or analysis in 

support of their positions. 

A. General Comments Concerning the 

Application of the Balancing Test to 

Loan-Level HMDA Data 

Comments Received 

Several industry commenters 

generally stated that the Bureau’s 

proposal did not sufficiently address the 

privacy risks posed by the disclosure of 

HMDA data, but many of these 

commenters offered little evidence or 

analysis to support their views or 

specific suggestions to address their 

concerns. A few industry commenters 

stated that the HMDA data the Bureau 

proposed to disclose would be highly 

re-identifiable. They also stated that the 

new data fields required under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule increased this reidentification risk compared to the data 

publicly disclosed under the disclosure 

regime adopted by the Board in 

implementing the 1992 amendments to 

HMDA (the Board’s disclosure 

regime).29 A group of industry 

commenters stated that over 80 percent 

of loans publicly disclosed under the 

Board’s disclosure regime could be reidentified and that the addition of the 

new data fields increases the possibility 

of re-identification to ‘‘virtually 

100%.’’ 30 These commenters also 

suggested that the amount of HMDA 

data the Bureau proposed to disclose 

would create incentives to re-identify 

the data. Several industry commenters 

stated that technological advances 

increase the ease with which public 

HMDA data can be re-identified. One 

industry commenter stated that the 

Bureau had underestimated 

adversaries’ 31 motives to re-identify the 

HMDA data and that the Bureau’s 

proposal downplayed the risk that an 

adversary with personal knowledge of 

an applicant or borrower would reidentify the applicant or borrower in the 

HMDA data. 

A few industry commenters also 

expressed general concern that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, the data 

could be used to target what one 

described as ‘‘predatory’’ marketing to 

applicants and borrowers and to commit 

financial fraud and identity theft. Two 

industry commenters suggested that 

these risks were posed by the data 

disclosed under the Board’s disclosure 

regime but that the Bureau’s proposed 

disclosure of the new data fields 

required by the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

increased these risks. One industry 

commenter stated that data the Bureau 

proposed to disclose could be used for 

social engineering attacks, such as an 

adversary posing as a borrower’s lender. 

The commenter also stated that 

disclosure could undermine lenders’ 

use of fraud detection measures such as 

authentication questions that rely on a 

customer’s personal knowledge of her 

financial information. The commenter 

also stated that data the Bureau 

proposed to disclose could be used to 

identify a vacation home for purposes of 

theft or adverse possession. A group of 

industry commenters stated that data 

the Bureau proposed to disclose could 

be used by an adversary to target older 

borrowers in particular, and also would 

allow the public to form a very accurate 

estimate of consumers’ 

creditworthiness. A few industry 

commenters expressed general concern 

that the Bureau proposed to disclose 

data consumers would consider 

sensitive or would like or expect to 

remain private. One industry 

commenter suggested that lenders 

would be subject to ‘‘increased 

litigation’’ if HMDA data disclosed by 

the Bureau were used for criminal 

purposes. 

With respect to disclosure benefits, a 

few industry commenters stated that 

public disclosure of the HMDA data, 

and in particular the new data required 

to be reported under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule, would not further HMDA’s 

purposes. One industry commenter 

suggested that regulator access to 

HMDA data alone would be sufficient to 

accomplish HMDA’s goals. This 

commenter and another industry 

commenter also stated that the data 

disclosed to the public under the 

Board’s disclosure regime are sufficient 

to allow the public to achieve HMDA’s 

goals. Another industry commenter 

suggested that the Bureau should 

publicly disclose limited data at first, 

and then later determine whether the 

information disclosed is sufficient to 

allow the public to achieve HMDA’s 

purposes. None of these commenters 

specifically addressed the benefits of the 

data’s public disclosure to HMDA’s 

purposes identified in the proposal. 

Two industry commenters addressed 

the balancing of privacy risks and 

disclosure benefits. One industry 

commenter stated that if there is ‘‘any 

chance’’ that HMDA data could be used 

for criminal purposes, the benefits of 

disclosure could not outweigh the 

privacy risks created by disclosure. 

Another industry commenter suggested 

that the balancing test requires the 

Bureau to modify the data to the point 

that re-identification risk is ‘‘remote,’’ 

although the commenter did not 

elaborate on what that term means or 


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32See 12 U.S.C. 2801(b) (‘‘The purpose of this 

chapter is to provide the citizens and public 

officials of the United States with sufficient 

information’’ to enable them to determine whether 

depository institutions are filling their obligations 

to serve the housing needs of the communities and 

neighborhoods in which they are located and to 

assist public officials in their determination of the 

distribution of public sector investments in a 

manner designed to improve the private investment 

environment) (emphasis added); 12 CFR 1003.1 

(‘‘This part implements the Home Mortgage 

Disclosure Act, which is intended to provide the 

public with loan data that can be used:’’ to help 

determine whether financial institutions are serving 

the housing needs of their communities; to assist 

public officials in distributing public-sector 

investment so as to attract private investment to 

areas where it is needed; and to assist in identifying 

possible discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes) (emphasis 

added). 

33 In 2005, researchers at the Board found that 

‘‘[m]ore than 90 percent of the loan records in a 

given year’s HMDA data are unique—that is, an 

individual lender reported only one loan in a given 

census tract for a specific loan amount.’’ Robert B. 

Avery et al., ‘‘New Information Reported under 

HMDA and Its Application in Fair Lending 

Enforcement,’’ at 367, Fed. Res. Bull. (Summer 

2005), available at http://www.federalreserve.gov/ 

pubs/bulletin/2005/3-05hmda.pdf. In the 2017 

paper cited by a group of industry commenters, the 

author described the high record uniqueness 

observed in the 2014 public HMDA data for a 

particular county and stated that, in a census tract 

that he identified as presenting low re-identification 

risk compared to others in the county, he was able 

to re-identify 72 percent of borrowers with loans by 

the same lender by matching the public HMDA data 

to public records. See Yezer, supra note 30, at 14– 

16. 

34Prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, loan 

amount was reported rounded to the nearest 

thousand. Under the Board’s disclosure regime, this 

field was disclosed to the public without 

modification. Consistent with its proposal and as 

discussed in part IV.B below, under the final policy 

guidance the Bureau intends to disclose loan 

amount binned in $10,000 intervals. 

35See 82 FR 44586, 44594 (Sept. 25, 2017). The 

Bureau noted that, to the extent that disclosure of 

census tract and demographic information such as 

ethnicity and race would create risk to applicant 

and borrower privacy, it believed the risks would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure. Id. at 

44598. As discussed in part IV.B, two industry 

commenters opposed the proposal to disclose 

without modification census tract. No commenter 

opposed the proposal to disclose without 

modification race and ethnicity. 

what would need to be shown to meet 

it. 

A few industry commenters 

recommended that the Bureau disclose 

the new data required under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule only in aggregate 

form, and one industry commenter 

stated that the Bureau should not 

disclose the new data to the public at 

all. Another industry commenter 

suggested that the Bureau disclose all 

HMDA data, including data publicly 

disclosed under the Board’s disclosure 

regime, in aggregate form only. 

Several commenters generally 

supported the Bureau’s proposal. These 

commenters generally agreed with the 

Bureau’s assessment and proposed 

balancing of privacy risks and 

disclosure benefits, although almost all 

of these commenters disagreed with the 

proposal’s treatment of a few specific 

fields and advocated for greater 

disclosure, as discussed below in part 

IV.B. A group of consumer advocate 

commenters emphasized that loan-level 

HMDA data have long been publicly 

disclosed without any evidence the data 

has been used to harm applicants and 

borrowers. These commenters asserted 

that industry commenters’ claims about 

re-identification risk failed to account 

for the Bureau’s proposed modifications 

and stated that the HMDA data the 

Bureau proposed to disclose would be 

unlikely to be used to engage in identity 

theft. These commenters also provided 

detailed descriptions of the benefits of 

public disclosure of HMDA data to 

HMDA’s purposes. An industry 

commenter described HMDA data as a 

critical source of information for the 

public to understand the mortgage 

market and to analyze the impact of 

public policies on communities and 

borrowers. This industry commenter 

supported the expansion of the data 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule and 

the Bureau’s proposal to disclose much 

of the new data. Another industry 

commenter similarly stated that much of 

the new data required to be reported 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule is 

vital to accurate and complete fair 

lending analyses and to understanding 

the housing needs of communities. An 

individual commenter also expressed 

support for the public availability of 

HMDA data, noting in particular the 

usefulness of the data to identify what 

the commenter described as ‘‘predatory’’ 

lending. 

Bureau Response 

For the reasons described below, the 

Bureau determines that none of the 

general comments it received provide a 

sufficient basis to make changes to the 

proposed policy guidance. On the other 

hand, as explained below in part IV.B, 

the Bureau determines that some 

specific comments it received about 

particular data fields provide an 

adequate basis to make changes to the 

proposed treatment of these fields. 

HMDA is a disclosure statute; public 

disclosure of HMDA data is central to 

the achievement of HMDA’s goals.32

The Bureau acknowledges, as it did in 

the proposal, that the modifications it 

intends to apply to the loan-level 

HMDA data disclosed to the public will 

not completely eliminate privacy risks. 

Nevertheless, the Bureau determines 

that, to the extent disclosure creates 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy, 

such risks are justified by the benefits of 

such release to the public in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. 

The public loan-level HMDA data 

have always displayed a high level of 

record uniqueness and included fields 

that are also found in identified public 

records.33 The Bureau believes that 

some degree of re-identification risk in 

connection with the public disclosure of 

the data is acceptable because HMDA 

requires the Bureau to consider not only 

the risk posed by disclosure, but also 

the benefits of disclosure to HMDA’s 

purposes. The Bureau does not believe 

that HMDA permits it to modify data 

based solely on the existence of a 

‘‘chance’’ that HMDA data could be 

used for harmful purposes, as suggested 

by one industry commenter, without 

considering such risk in light of the 

benefits of disclosure to HMDA’s 

purposes. Similarly, the Bureau believes 

it would be inconsistent with HMDA to 

modify the public data to the point that 

re-identification risk is ‘‘remote,’’ as 

suggested by another industry 

commenter, instead of to the point that 

any privacy risk created by the 

disclosure is justified by the benefits of 

the data to HMDA’s purposes. 

Under the final policy guidance, the 

Bureau intends to modify every new 

field required under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule that it has identified as likely 

to substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower. The Bureau is also making 

changes to the proposal concerning 

specific data fields where commenters 

pointed out that the proposal would 

have left unmodified data that would 

substantially facilitate re-identification. 

Further, the Bureau intends to 

significantly reduce the precision of 

loan amount in the public data.34 Loan 

amount is a field that was required to 

be reported prior to the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule and that the Bureau believes 

to be a significant contributor to reidentification risk in the HMDA data. 

The Bureau has carefully considered 

the risk that a potential adversary, such 

as an applicant’s or borrower’s neighbor 

or acquaintance, may be able to reidentify the HMDA data by relying on 

personal knowledge about the applicant 

or borrower. As discussed in more detail 

in the proposal,35 although the Bureau 

believes that location and demographic 

information may be more likely to be 

known than other information in the 

HMDA data, it is impossible to 

determine the exact content of any preexisting personal knowledge such a 

potential adversary may possess. None 

of the comments provided any basis for 

the Bureau to make reliable predictions 

as to what this knowledge would be. 


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36 Id. at 44594. 

37 Indeed, as noted in the proposal, the Bureau 

believes that the data would be of minimal use for 

such purposes even without modification. Id. at 

44595. 

38See id. at 44593–95. 

39 Yezer, supra note 30, at 14–16. 

40 Id. at 11–14. 

41For example, the Bureau believes that low 

credit scores and high debt-to-income ratios may 

provide information about a borrower’s financial 

condition that may suggest vulnerability to scams 

relating to debt relief or credit repair. The final 

policy guidance will exclude credit score from the 

public HMDA data and will top-code debt-toincome ratio to protect very high ratios. 

This uncertainty creates challenges for 

evaluating the degree to which 

individual data fields contribute to the 

risk of re-identification by such a 

potential adversary. The Bureau initially 

determined that, because the preexisting personal knowledge possessed 

by such a potential adversary is 

typically limited to information about a 

single individual, or a small number of 

individuals, any re-identification 

attempt by such a potential adversary 

would likely target or affect a limited 

number of individuals.36 No commenter 

disputed this statement, much less 

rebutted it with data or analysis. 

The Bureau concludes, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that the HMDA data it intends to 

disclose under this final policy 

guidance will be of minimal value to an 

adversary seeking to perpetrate identity 

theft or financial fraud against 

applicants and borrowers or to engage in 

other unlawful conduct.37 Specifically, 

as noted in the proposal, the HMDA 

data do not include information 

typically required to open new accounts 

in a consumer’s name, such as Social 

Security number, date of birth, place of 

birth, passport number, or driver’s 

license number, nor do they include 

information useful to perpetrate existing 

account fraud, such as account numbers 

or passwords. Although an adversary 

might try to use almost any information 

relating to an individual to steal her 

identity or commit fraud against her, the 

Bureau concludes that disclosure of 

HMDA data would be unlikely to 

increase the information already 

publicly available that an adversary 

could exploit for these purposes. For 

example, the public HMDA data will 

include the name of the financial 

institution and other details about the 

loan terms that could be used in a social 

engineering attack against a borrower by 

a perpetrator pretending to be the 

financial institution or against a 

financial institution by a perpetrator 

pretending to be the borrower. However, 

these and other data that could be used 

for this purpose are often already 

publicly available—in identified form— 

in real estate transaction records. 

The Bureau determines that an 

individual seeking to rob or adversely 

possess a property would be unlikely to 

undertake the effort required to reidentify public HMDA data to determine 

whether such a property is a vacation 

home, as suggested by an industry 

commenter. With respect to the industry 

commenter that expressed concern that 

lenders would be subject to increased 

litigation in the event public HMDA 

data was used for criminal purposes, as 

noted above, the Bureau concludes that 

it is unlikely the public HMDA data 

would be used for criminal purposes. 

Even if the data were used for such 

purposes, the Bureau is unable to 

identify a basis for lender liability under 

such a circumstance, and the 

commenter did not describe how such 

increased litigation would arise. 

The Bureau acknowledges that, if the 

public HMDA data were re-identified, 

that is, if an adversary were to link an 

identified individual to his or her 

HMDA data, certain fields would reveal 

information about an applicant’s or 

borrower’s creditworthiness. However, 

information about applicant and 

borrower creditworthiness is important 

to HMDA’s purposes. For example, this 

information assists in identifying 

possible discriminatory lending patterns 

by helping ensure that users are 

comparing applicants and borrowers 

with similar profiles, thereby 

controlling for factors that might 

provide non-discriminatory 

explanations for disparities in credit 

and pricing decisions. As explained 

below, despite the opposition of many 

commenters, the Bureau is issuing final 

policy guidance that excludes from the 

public HMDA data credit score, which 

is the field that would reveal the most 

about an applicant’s or borrower’s 

creditworthiness. 

The Bureau described and analyzed 

potential adversaries’ incentives to reidentify public HMDA data in the 

proposed policy guidance.38 Even 

though some adversaries may have such 

incentives and loan-level HMDA data 

has been made available to the public 

since 1991, the Bureau is unaware of 

any instances of re-identification of the 

data for harmful purposes. Commenters 

provided no evidence of such reidentification. In the 2017 paper cited 

by a group of industry commenters, the 

author states that, using the 2014 public 

HMDA data, he re-identified 72 percent 

of borrowers with loans by the same 

lender in a particular census tract by 

matching the data to public records, but 

it appears that this exercise was 

undertaken solely to demonstrate that 

such matching can be done.39 Also in 

this paper, the author points to several 

projects in which academic and 

government researchers matched HMDA 

data to other data sources—some to 

private datasets, others to public 

records—for purposes of research 

related to mortgage lending.40 It is not 

clear from several of the resulting 

papers whether the researchers used 

public HMDA data to perform the 

matching (at least one appears to have 

relied on nonpublic HMDA data), but, 

in any event, it appears that in none of 

these instances were the HMDA data 

matched to other data sources for 

purposes of re-identifying borrowers, let 

alone for purposes of harming 

consumers. The Bureau concludes the 

modifications it intends to apply to the 

public HMDA data under the final 

policy guidance will minimize the 

attractiveness of the HMDA data for 

harmful purposes, and so will reduce 

any incentives for adversaries to reidentify the data.41

In 2015, the Bureau determined that 

public disclosure of the new HMDA 

data required under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule would further the purposes 

of HMDA. As noted above, the statute 

and Regulation C are clear that HMDA’s 

purpose is the provision of data to the 

public and public officials in 

furtherance of HMDA’s goals. Congress 

itself determined that many of the new 

data should be collected and reported to 

further HMDA’s purposes, and the 

Bureau determined in the rulemaking 

resulting in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

that each of the new HMDA data fields 

it added using its discretionary 

authority furthers HMDA’s goals. 

Several commenters described how the 

new HMDA data furthers HMDA’s 

purposes, and no commenters provided 

analysis or data to support the general 

statement made by a few commenters 

that the public disclosure of HMDA data 

does not further the statute’s purposes. 

For purposes of this final policy 

guidance, the Bureau takes as given the 

determinations made in the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule, but the Bureau has stated 

that it may reconsider these 

determinations with respect to some or 

all of the discretionary fields through a 

new legislative rulemaking. 

Finally, the Bureau declines to 

exclude from the public data or disclose 

only in aggregate form all HMDA data 

or all new data required to be reported 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, as 

suggested by several commenters. As 

noted, HMDA is a disclosure statute. It 

requires that HMDA data is made 


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42See 82 FR 44586, 44597–98 (Sept. 25, 2017). 43 Id. at 44597–99. 44Note that, as discussed below, the Bureau 

proposed to exclude free-form text fields used to 

report certain data for the following data fields: 

ethnicity, race, name and version of the credit 

scoring model, reasons for denial, and AUS name. 

Id. at 44609–10. 

45See 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(2)–(7), (a)(8)(i), (a)(9)(ii), 

(a)(10)(i), (a)(10)(iii), (a)(11)–(14), (a)(15)(i) (name 

and version of credit scoring model), (a)(16)–(22), 

(a)(24)–(27), (a)(29)–(33), (a)(35)(i) (AUS name), 

(a)(36)–(38). 

46 82 FR 44586, 44598 (Sept. 25, 2017) (describing 

the utility of these data fields in light of HMDA’s 

purposes: helping the public and public officials to 

determine whether financial institutions are serving 

the housing needs of their communities, to 

distribute public-sector investment so as to attract 

private investment to areas where it is needed, and 

to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

available to the public except as the 

Bureau determines necessary to protect 

applicant and borrower privacy 

interests. The Bureau interprets its 

obligation under the statute to permit 

modification of the data made available 

to the public only where the privacy 

risk such disclosure would pose would 

not be justified by the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Under the balancing test, excluding 

from public disclosure or disclosing 

only in aggregate form all HMDA data 

or all new HMDA data would require 

the Bureau to determine that the loanlevel disclosure of each individual data 

field creates privacy risks that are not 

justified by the benefits of disclosure to 

HMDA’s purposes and that the only 

modification available to appropriately 

balance the risks and benefits is 

exclusion from the public data. 

However, for the reasons discussed in 

the proposal,42 the Bureau determines 

that most of the HMDA data create low, 

if any, privacy risk—they neither 

substantially facilitate re-identification 

nor do they create a risk of harm or 

sensitivity—and that any risks are 

justified by the benefits in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. Except with respect 

to total units and affordable units, 

discussed below in part IV.B, none of 

the comments provided any information 

that casts doubt on this conclusion. 

Therefore, the Bureau concludes that 

excluding all HMDA data or all new 

HMDA data would be inconsistent with 

the statute and the balancing test, which 

the Bureau has by law bound itself to 

use to make disclosure determinations. 

B. Comments Concerning the Proposed 

Treatment of Specific Data Fields Under 

the Balancing Test 

Data To Be Disclosed Without 

Modification 

The Bureau proposed to publicly 

disclose the following data fields as 

reported, without modification: 43

• The following information about 

applicants, borrowers, and the 

underwriting process: Income, sex, race, 

ethnicity, name and version of the credit 

scoring model, reasons for denial, and 

automated underwriting system (AUS) 

name.44

• The following information about 

the property securing the loan: State, 

county, census tract, occupancy type, 

construction method, manufactured 

housing secured property type, 

manufactured housing land property 

interest, total units, and affordable 

units. 

• The following information about 

the application or loan: Loan term, loan 

type, loan purpose, whether the 

application was submitted directly to 

the financial institution, whether the 

loan was initially payable to the 

financial institution, whether a 

preapproval was requested, action 

taken, type of purchaser, lien status, 

prepayment penalty term, introductory 

rate period, interest rate, rate spread, 

total loan costs or total points and fees, 

origination charges, total discount 

points, lender credits, whether the loan 

was a high-cost mortgage under the 

Home Ownership and Equity Protection 

Act (HOEPA), balloon payment, 

interest-only payment, negative 

amortization, other non-amortizing 

features, combined loan-to-value ratio, 

open-end line of credit flag, business or 

commercial purpose flag, and reverse 

mortgage flag. 

• The following information about 

the lender: Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) 

and financial institution name.45

The data fields above that were required 

to be reported under Regulation C prior 

to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule were 

disclosed to the public without 

modification under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. The Bureau’s 

continued disclosure of these data fields 

thus is consistent with the government’s 

longstanding approach. 

With the exception of LEI, financial 

institution name, action taken, reasons 

for denial, census tract, and income, 

each of which is discussed further 

below, the Bureau initially determined 

that disclosing the data listed above in 

the loan-level HMDA data released to 

the public would likely present low risk 

to applicant and borrower privacy. The 

Bureau also stated that, to the extent 

that disclosure of these fields would 

create risk to applicant or borrower 

privacy, the Bureau believed the risks 

would be justified by the benefits of 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes.46

An industry commenter and a group 

of consumer advocate commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

disclose without modification the fields 

the Bureau identified as likely to create 

low privacy risk. The industry 

commenter stated these data fields 

would provide valuable information 

about the mortgage market that is not 

available from any other source. The 

consumer advocate commenters stated 

that data fields relating to pricing— 

including the fields for interest rate, rate 

spread, total loan costs or total points 

and fees, origination charges, and 

discount points—would help data users 

identify potentially discriminatory price 

disparities within the prime and 

subprime mortgage markets. These 

commenters also stated that the data 

fields related to loan terms and 

conditions—such as the term of any 

prepayment penalty, the length of any 

introductory rate period, and whether 

the contractual terms include nonamortizing features such as a balloon 

payment—would serve as an earlywarning system, enabling community 

organizations and government agencies 

to assess the prevalence of unfair, 

deceptive, and unaffordable lending. 

These commenters additionally 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

disclose new race and ethnicity 

subcategories for Asian and Hispanic 

loan applicants. In their view, 

disclosure of these subcategories would 

help data users identify ‘‘discrimination 

and targeting’’ with greater precision 

and would promote responsible lending 

in all communities. These commenters 

also stated that disclosure of new data 

fields on manufactured housing would 

provide important information about the 

manufactured home market, including 

any issues of concern related to 

affordability, sustainability, or fair 

lending. Another consumer advocate 

commenter supported the Bureau’s 

proposal to disclose whether the 

property is or will be used by the 

applicant or borrower as a principal 

residence, a second residence, or an 

investment property. 

Except for total units and affordable 

units, the Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification the data fields the 

Bureau identified in the proposal as 

likely presenting low risk to applicant 

and borrower privacy, as proposed. For 

the reasons discussed above and in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that disclosing these data fields as 

reported appropriately balances the 

privacy risks that may be created by 

such disclosure and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 


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47 Id. at 44597–99. 48 Id. 49 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(A); 12 CFR 1003.5(a)(3) 

(effective Jan. 1, 2019). 50 80 FR 66128, 66312 (Oct. 28, 2015). 51 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(A). 52 82 FR 44586, 44597–99 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

53 Id. at 44598 (stating that the ability to identify 

the financial institution by name is critical for users 

to evaluate the lending practices of a financial 

institution). 54 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(8)(i). 

55Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., ‘‘Filing 

instructions guide for HMDA data collected in 

2018—OMB Control No. 3170–0008,’’ at 81 (Sept. 

2018) (hereinafter FIG), available at https://

s3.amazonaws.com/cfpb-hmda-public/prod/help/ 

2018-hmda-fig-2018-hmda-rule.pdf. Action taken is 

reported using the following codes: Code 1—Loan 

originated; Code 2—Application approved but not 

accepted; Code 3—Application denied; Code 4— 

Application withdrawn by applicant; Code 5—File 

closed for incompleteness; Code 6—Purchased loan; 

Code 7—Preapproval request denied; Code 8— 

Preapproval request approved but not accepted. 

56 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(16). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report reasons for denial for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA, although reporting may be required by 

another law or regulation. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 

(Sept. 7, 2018). 

57FIG, supra note 55, at 96–98. Reasons for denial 

is reported using the following codes: Code 1— 

Debt-to-income ratio; Code 2—Employment history; 

Code 3—Credit history; Code 4—Collateral; Code 

5—Insufficient cash (down payment, closing costs); 

Code 6—Unverifiable information; Code 7—Credit 

application incomplete; Code 8—Mortgage 

insurance denied; Code 9—Other; Code 10—Not 

applicable; Code 1111—Exempt. 

58 12 CFR 1003.4(c) (effective Jan. 1, 1990). 

Financial institutions regulated by the OCC are 

required to report reasons for denial on their HMDA 

loan/application registers pursuant to 12 CFR 

27.3(a)(1)(i), 128.6. Similarly, pursuant to 

regulations transferred from the Office of Thrift 

Supervision, certain financial institutions 

supervised by the FDIC are required to report 

reasons for denial on their HMDA loan/application 

registers. 12 CFR 390.147. 

59 82 FR 44586, 44597–99 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

With respect to LEI, financial 

institution name, and census tract, the 

Bureau acknowledged in the proposal 

that disclosure would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of applicants or 

borrowers. However, the Bureau 

initially determined that these risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.47 With 

respect to income, action taken, and 

reasons for denial, the Bureau 

recognized in the proposal that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure would likely create a risk of 

harm or sensitivity, but the Bureau 

initially determined these risks would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.48 The 

Bureau responds to the specific 

comments it received on its proposed 

treatment of these data and describes its 

final determinations below. 

Legal Entity Identifier and Financial 

Institution Name 

Regulation C requires a financial 

institution, when submitting its loan/ 

application register to the Bureau, to 

report the financial institution’s LEI and 

name.49 This requirement is effective 

January 1, 2019, and will apply to the 

submission of 2018 HMDA data.50 The 

LEI is an identifier issued to the 

financial institution by either a utility 

endorsed by the LEI Regulatory 

Oversight Committee or a utility 

endorsed or otherwise governed by the 

Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF) (or any 

successor of the GLEIF) after the GLEIF 

assumes operational governance of the 

global LEI system.51 Prior to the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, a financial 

institution was required to report its 

name and HMDA Reporter’s 

Identification Number (HMDA RID), a 

ten-digit number that consisted of an 

entity identifier specified by the 

financial institution’s appropriate 

Federal agency combined with a code 

that designates the agency. Both the 

financial institution’s name and HMDA 

RID were disclosed to the public 

without modification under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. 

The Bureau proposed to disclose to 

the public without modification LEI and 

financial institution name as reported.52

The Bureau initially determined that 

disclosure of these data fields in the 

loan-level HMDA data released to the 

public would likely substantially 

facilitate the re-identification of 

applicants or borrowers, but that this 

risk to applicant and borrower privacy 

would be justified by the benefits of 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes.53 An industry commenter 

stated that, due to the risk of frivolous 

class action litigation against financial 

institutions, the public HMDA data 

should not reveal financial institutions’ 

identities. 

The Bureau declines to exclude LEI 

and financial institution name from the 

public HMDA data based on the risk of 

frivolous class action litigation against 

financial institutions. As described 

above, HMDA requires each financial 

institution to make its modified loan/ 

application register available to the 

public, which necessarily entails 

identification of the lender. Though the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule shifted 

responsibility for disclosing the 

modified loan/application register from 

institutions to the Bureau, the Bureau 

concludes that it must maintain the 

public’s ability to obtain loan-level data 

for an individual lender. Further, the 

Bureau concludes that excluding these 

data fields, and thereby concealing the 

identities of lenders, would greatly 

undermine the utility of the public data 

for HMDA’s purposes, because HMDA’s 

purposes in large part concern 

evaluating the practices of individual 

lenders. Although the Bureau 

appreciates the industry commenter’s 

concern about frivolous litigation 

against financial institutions and agrees 

such litigation should not be 

encouraged, it declines to exclude LEI 

and financial institution name from the 

public data on this basis. 

The Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification LEI and financial 

institution name, as proposed. For the 

reasons discussed above and in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that disclosing without modification 

LEI and financial institution name 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that may be created by disclosure of 

these fields and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Action Taken and Reasons for Denial 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the action taken by 

the financial institution in response to 

an application.54 Financial institutions 

must report a code from a specified list 

set forth in the HMDA Filing 

Instructions Guide to indicate the action 

taken.55 Financial institutions were 

required to report this data field prior to 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, and this 

data field was disclosed to the public 

without modification under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. 

Regulation C also requires financial 

institutions to report the principal 

reason or reasons the financial 

institution denied the application, if 

applicable.56 If the financial institution 

denied the application, it must report 

one or more codes from a specified list 

to indicate the reason or reasons for 

denial.57 Prior to the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule, reporting of reasons for denial was 

optional, except as required by the OCC 

and FDIC for certain supervised 

financial institutions.58 When reported, 

reasons for denial was disclosed to the 

public without modification under the 

Board’s disclosure regime. 

The Bureau proposed to disclose to 

the public without modification action 

taken and reasons for denial as 

reported.59 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing action taken 

(if an application was denied) and 

reasons for denial in the loan-level 

HMDA data released to the public 

would likely disclose information about 

the applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive. Nevertheless, the Bureau 


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60 Id. at 44598 (describing the utility of action 

taken and reasons for denial in light of HMDA’s 

purposes, including helping the public and public 

officials to identify possible discriminatory lending 

patterns and enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

61See id. at 44593 n.55. 

62 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9)(ii). 12 CFR 1003.4(e) 

requires banks and savings associations that are 

required to report data on small business, small 

farm, and community development lending under 

regulations that implement the Community 

Reinvestment Act (CRA) to collect the information 

required by 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9) for property located 

outside MSAs and MDs in which the institution has 

a home or branch office, or outside any MSA. 

63FIG, supra note 55, at 83–84. 

64Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, Public 

Law 94–200, section 304(a)(2)(A), 89 Stat. 1126 

(Dec. 31, 1975); 12 CFR 203.4(a)(1) (effective June 

28, 1976). 

65 12 U.S.C. 2803(j)(2)(C). 

66 82 FR 44586, 44597–99 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

67 Id. at 44598 (describing the utility of census 

tract in light of HMDA’s purposes, including 

helping the public and public officials to determine 

whether financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities and to identify 

possible discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

initially determined that this risk to 

applicant and borrower privacy would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.60

A group of consumer advocate 

commenters supported the Bureau’s 

proposal to disclose action taken, stating 

that it is essential for determining 

whether lenders are responsibly meeting 

credit needs in a non-discriminatory 

manner. These commenters also stated 

that disclosure of reasons for denial—in 

conjunction with disclosure of the name 

and version of the credit scoring model 

and automated underwriting system 

used by the financial institution, as the 

Bureau proposed—would increase 

transparency in the marketplace and 

support fair lending enforcement by 

enabling data users to determine if there 

are differences in reasons for denial 

based on the credit scoring model or 

automated underwriting system used. 

An industry commenter 

recommended that the Bureau exclude 

action taken and reasons for denial from 

the public HMDA data for commercialpurpose multifamily loans only. The 

commenter stated that disclosure of 

these fields would create reidentification risk and pose a unique 

risk of harm for commercial-purpose 

multifamily applicants. In the 

commenter’s view, if the HMDA data 

were re-identified, commercial-purpose 

multifamily applicants could suffer 

negative reputational harm from certain 

information reported for action taken— 

specifically, ‘‘Denied,’’ ‘‘Withdrawn by 

applicant,’’ or ‘‘Closed as incomplete’’— 

and from any information relating to the 

reason for a denial. According to the 

commenter, the disclosure of this 

information could adversely affect these 

applicants’ business relationships and 

these applicants may not be able to 

mitigate such harm effectively. 

The Bureau does not believe that the 

concerns expressed by the industry 

commenter justify excluding from the 

public HMDA data action taken and 

reasons for denial for commercialpurpose multifamily applications and 

loans. The risk of harm identified by the 

commenter could arise only with 

respect to an application that did not 

result in an origination. As discussed in 

more detail in the proposal,61 the 

Bureau concludes that re-identification 

risk is significantly reduced for 

applications that did not result in 

originations. The Bureau is not aware of 

any public or private dataset containing 

information about applications that do 

not result in originated mortgage loans. 

The Bureau believes that the lack of 

public information about applications 

would significantly reduce the 

likelihood that an adversary could 

match the record of a HMDA loan 

application that was not originated to an 

identified record in another dataset. 

Even if an applicant were to be reidentified, however, the Bureau 

concludes the harms the commenter 

envisions are unlikely to occur. Loanlevel data for multifamily applications 

have been disclosed publicly since 

1991, and the Bureau is not aware of 

any evidence that adversaries have reidentified these applications in the 

public HMDA data or that this type of 

harm has occurred. Further, even if this 

type of reputational harm were likely to 

occur, this harm would not be unique to 

commercial-purpose multifamily 

borrowers. Finally, if action taken were 

excluded, users would be unable to 

determine whether an application was 

originated, critically impairing the 

utility of the public data for HMDA’s 

purposes. 

The Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification action taken and 

reasons for denial, as proposed. For the 

reasons discussed above and in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that disclosing without modification 

action taken and reasons for denial 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that may be created by disclosure of 

these fields and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

State, County, and Census Tract 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the State, county, 

and census tract of the property 

securing or proposed to secure the 

covered loan if the property is located 

in an MSA or Metropolitan Division 

(MD) in which the institution has a 

home or branch office, or if the 

institution is subject to § 1003.4(e).62

Institutions must report the State using 

the two-letter State code of the property; 

the county using the five-digit Federal 

Information Processing Standards code 

for the county; and the census tract 

using the 11-digit census tract number 

defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.63 As 

originally enacted and implemented in 

Regulation C, HMDA required financial 

institutions to disclose information 

about the financial institution’s 

mortgage lending activity by census 

tract.64 The 1992 amendments to HMDA 

requiring institutions to make publicly 

available their modified loan/ 

application registers included language 

stating ‘‘[i]t is the sense of the Congress 

that a depository institution should 

provide loan register information under 

this section in a format based on the 

census tract in which the property is 

located.’’ 65 State, county, and census 

tract were disclosed to the public 

without modification under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. 

The Bureau proposed to disclose to 

the public without modification State, 

county, and census tract as reported.66

The Bureau initially determined that 

disclosure of State and county would 

likely present low risk to applicant and 

borrower privacy, and that, to the extent 

that disclosure of these fields would 

create risk to applicant and borrower 

privacy, the risks would be justified by 

the benefits of disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosure of census 

tract would likely substantially facilitate 

the re-identification of applicants or 

borrowers, but that this risk to applicant 

and borrower privacy would be justified 

by the benefits of disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes.67

One industry commenter opposed the 

Bureau’s proposal to disclose census 

tract without modification, and another 

industry commenter opposed the 

disclosure of this field for commercialpurpose multifamily loans. The first 

industry commenter stated that, to 

reduce re-identification risk, the Bureau 

should exclude census tract from the 

public loan-level HMDA data and 

instead disclose ‘‘generalized census 

tract classifications’’ for each 

application or loan. The commenter 

suggested that, for example, the Bureau 

could indicate whether the property is 

located in a low- or moderate-income 

census tract or a census tract with a high 

percentage of minority residents. The 

second industry commenter stated that, 

for commercial-purpose multifamily 

loans only, the Bureau should exclude 


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68See, e.g., Melanie Brody & Anjali Garg, ‘‘2013 

HMDA Data Is Now Available; Mortgage Lenders 

Should Consider Evaluating Redlining Risk,’’ K&L 

Gates, Consumer Fin. Servs. Watch (Sept. 25, 2014), 

available at https://

www.consumerfinancialserviceswatch.com/2014/ 

09/2013-hmda-data-is-now-available-mortgagelenders-should-consider-evaluating-redlining-risk/ 

(‘‘With the release of the 2013 HMDA data, lenders 

can now evaluate their own 2013 redlining risk by 

comparing their applications and originations in 

high-minority census tracts to those of their 

peers.’’). 

69 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(iii). 

70Comment 4(a)(10)(iii)–10. 

71 54 FR 51356, 51363 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

72 82 FR 44586, 44597–99 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

73 Id. at 44598 (describing the utility of income in 

light of HMDA’s purposes, including helping the 

public and public officials to determine whether 

financial institutions are serving the housing needs 

of their communities and to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and enforce 

antidiscrimination statutes). 

74 Id. 

75As described in greater detail in part II.B, 

above, the EGRRCPA amended HMDA by adding 

partial exemptions from HMDA’s data collection 

and reporting requirements for certain insured 

depository institutions and insured credit unions. 

census tract and county, and should 

disclose State only where there are 

enough multifamily originations in the 

State to make re-identification risk 

‘‘remote,’’ although the commenter did 

not identify the number of originations 

that would satisfy that standard. 

According to the commenter, the 

disclosure of these data fields would 

pose elevated re-identification risk for 

multifamily borrowers, as significantly 

fewer commercial-purpose multifamily 

loans are originated each year than 

single-family loans. 

The Bureau recognizes that disclosing 

generalized census tract classifications 

instead of the census tract would reduce 

re-identification risk. Nevertheless, the 

Bureau concludes that doing so would 

critically undermine the utility of the 

data for HMDA’s purposes. If census 

tract were excluded from the HMDA 

data, the public and public officials 

would be unable to analyze the data at 

a geographic level smaller than county. 

Consequently, excluding census tract 

would make it virtually impossible for 

data users to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns within 

counties. For example, for a data user to 

analyze whether a lender was engaged 

in redlining, the user would need 

census tract to compare lending 

behavior among lenders in a particular 

community or an individual lender’s 

behavior in different communities. 

Without census tract, users would also 

be unable to determine whether lenders 

were serving the housing needs of 

communities within counties or identify 

communities within counties where 

public-sector investment is needed to 

attract private investment. Additionally, 

excluding census tract from disclosure 

would also prevent financial 

institutions from using HMDA to assess 

their own fair lending risk by comparing 

their data with other institutions.68

The Bureau also declines to exclude 

State, county, and census tract for 

commercial-purpose multifamily loans. 

The Bureau determines that the privacy 

risk created by the disclosure of census 

tract, even if heightened with respect to 

multifamily loans, is justified by the 

critical benefits of this field to HMDA’s 

purposes, as described in the above 

paragraph. The Bureau notes that, if 

census tract is disclosed, disclosure of 

county and State do not create 

additional privacy risk, because 

knowing the census tract allows a user 

to discern the county and state, as 

counties are geographic units within 

states and census tracts are geographic 

units within counties. 

The Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification State, county, and 

census tract, as proposed. For the 

reasons discussed above and in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that disclosing without modification 

State, county, and census tract 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that may be created by disclosure of 

these fields and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Income 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the gross annual 

income they relied on in making the 

credit decision or, if a credit decision 

was not made, the gross annual income 

they relied on in processing the 

application. Financial institutions do 

not have to report income for covered 

loans for which the credit decision did 

not consider income (or for applications 

for which the credit decision would not 

have considered income).69 Financial 

institutions must report income 

rounded to the nearest thousand.70 The 

Board amended Regulation C in 1989 to 

require reporting of income as part of its 

implementation of FIRREA.71 Prior to 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, financial 

institutions were required to report this 

data field rounded to the nearest 

thousand. Under the Board’s disclosure 

regime, this data field was disclosed to 

the public without modification. 

The Bureau proposed to disclose 

without modification income as 

reported.72 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing income in 

the loan-level HMDA data released to 

the public would likely disclose 

information about the applicant or 

borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive. 

Nevertheless, the Bureau initially 

determined that this risk to applicant 

and borrower privacy would be justified 

by the benefits of disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes.73

An industry commenter opposed the 

Bureau’s proposal to disclose income 

without modification and recommended 

that the Bureau exclude income from 

the public HMDA data. The commenter 

stated that the new data required under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule would 

increase the risk that the HMDA data 

could be re-identified, and that 

information about a consumer’s income 

is generally not available to the public 

and is considered sensitive by many 

consumers. The commenter also stated 

that income data would be 

‘‘inconsequential’’ because the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule modified Regulation 

C to require financial institutions to 

report debt-to-income ratio. 

The Bureau does not believe that the 

concerns expressed by the commenter 

justify excluding income from the 

public HMDA data. The Bureau 

recognizes, as it stated in the proposal, 

that, if the HMDA data were reidentified, disclosure of income would 

likely create a risk of harm or 

sensitivity.74 However, the Bureau 

believes that this risk is justified by the 

benefits of disclosure to HMDA’s 

purposes. For example, income data 

plays a crucial role in: (1) Helping to 

identify whether the credit needs of 

people with low and moderate incomes 

in particular communities are being 

met; (2) the extent to which borrowers 

with low and moderate incomes are 

using certain products, such as home 

equity lines of credit; and (3) the extent 

to which lower-income borrowers are 

receiving credit under different terms 

than higher-income borrowers. The 

Bureau also believes that income data 

will continue to be valuable for 

achieving HMDA’s fair lending 

purposes, notwithstanding the 

disclosure of debt-to-income ratio data 

pursuant to HMDA. Although lenders 

may rely more on debt-to-income ratio 

than on income in underwriting a loan, 

income will continue to be valuable as 

a proxy for debt-to-income ratio if debtto-income ratio is not reported as a 

result of the EGRRCPA 75 or if the 

precision of debt-to-income ratio is 

reduced in the public data as a result of 

binning or top- or bottom-coding. To the 

extent the commenter’s concern is that 

the HMDA data the Bureau proposed to 

disclose presents increased reidentification risk compared to the data 

disclosed under the Board’s disclosure 


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76 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i). 

77 Id. 

78 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(A) through (C). 

79 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(B)(3). 

80FIG, supra note 55, at 77–79. 

81 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(G). 

82 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

83 Id. at 45330. 

84 Id.; see also FIG, supra note 55, at 78–79. 

85 82 FR 44586, 44599–44600 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

86 Id. at 44599 (describing the utility of ULI in 

light of HMDA’s purposes, including helping the 

public and public officials to determine whether 

financial institutions are serving the housing needs 

of their communities). 

87Regarding the consumer advocate commenters’ 

request for additional data, the Bureau will 

consider, as it does in the ordinary course of its 

business, whether to make additional information 

related to mortgage lending available to the public. 

88 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(ii). 

89FIG, supra note 55, at 79. 

90 54 FR 51356, 51363 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

regime, the Bureau notes that it intends 

to modify every new field required 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule that 

it has identified as likely to 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower. Further, the Bureau intends to 

modify loan amount, a field that was 

disclosed without modification under 

the Board’s disclosure regime and that 

the Bureau determines to be a 

significant contributor to reidentification risk in the HMDA data. 

The Bureau intends to disclose 

without modification income. For the 

reasons discussed above and in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that disclosing without modification 

income appropriately balances the 

privacy risks that may be created by 

disclosure of this field and the benefits 

of such disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. 

Data To Be Excluded or Otherwise 

Modified in the Loan-Level HMDA Data 

The Bureau proposed to exclude or 

otherwise modify several data fields in 

the public HMDA data: The universal 

loan identifier; application date; loan 

amount; action taken date; property 

address; age; credit score; property 

value; debt-to-income ratio; the unique 

identifier assigned by the Nationwide 

Mortgage Licensing System and Registry 

for the mortgage loan originator; and 

AUS result. The Bureau also proposed 

to exclude free-form text fields used in 

certain instances to report the following 

data: Ethnicity; race; the name and 

version of the credit scoring model; 

reasons for denial; and AUS name. 

Below the Bureau addresses the 

comments it received and describes its 

final action on each of these data fields 

and on two additional data fields it did 

not propose to modify but intends to 

modify under the final policy guidance: 

Total units and affordable units. 

Universal Loan Identifier or NonUniversal Loan Identifier 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report a universal loan 

identifier (ULI) for each covered loan or 

application that can be used to identify 

and retrieve the application file.76

Regulation C sets forth detailed 

requirements concerning the ULI to be 

assigned and reported.77 A ULI must 

begin with the financial institution’s 

LEI, followed by up to 23 additional 

characters to identify the covered loan 

or application, and then end with a twocharacter check digit calculated 

according to the methodology 

prescribed in appendix C of Regulation 

C.78 In addition, a ULI must be unique 

within the institution and must not 

contain any information that could be 

used to directly identify the applicant or 

borrower.79 Institutions reporting a loan 

for which a ULI was previously assigned 

and reported must report the ULI that 

was previously assigned and reported 

for the loan. The ULI must be reported 

as an alphanumeric field.80 The 

requirement in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule to report a ULI replaced the 

requirement under prior Regulation C 

that a financial institution report an 

identifying number for the loan or loan 

application. Under the Board’s 

disclosure regime, this loan or loan 

application identifying number was 

excluded from the public HMDA data. 

The Bureau added the requirement to 

report a ULI to implement the DoddFrank Act’s amendment to HMDA 

providing for the collection and 

reporting of, ‘‘as the Bureau may 

determine to be appropriate, a universal 

loan identifier.’’ 81

Insured depository institutions and 

insured credit unions are not required to 

report ULI for loans or applications that 

are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA.82 The 2018 HMDA Final 

Rule provides, however, that—because 

loans and applications must be 

identifiable in the HMDA data to ensure 

proper HMDA submission, processing, 

and compliance—institutions that 

choose not to report ULI pursuant to the 

EGRRCPA must report a non-universal 

loan identifier (NULI) for each loan and 

application.83 The NULI may be 

composed of up to 22 characters and, 

among other requirements, must be 

unique within the insured depository 

institution or insured credit union, 

though it need not be unique within the 

industry.84

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding ULI.85 The Bureau 

initially determined that disclosing ULI 

in the loan-level HMDA data released to 

the public would likely substantially 

facilitate the re-identification of an 

applicant or borrower and that this risk 

would not be justified by the benefits of 

the disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes.86

A few industry commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

exclude ULI from the public HMDA 

data. A group of consumer advocate 

commenters did not oppose the 

Bureau’s proposal to exclude ULI but 

recommended that, separate from the 

HMDA data, the Bureau publish an 

additional data product that, according 

to these commenters, would serve some 

of the same purposes as ULI. 

Specifically, these commenters 

recommended that the Bureau publish 

data on each financial institution’s loan 

purchases by income level and by year 

originated. According to these 

commenters, this data would help data 

users assess whether financial 

institutions are purchasing loans made 

to low- and moderate-income borrowers 

from one another to improve their CRA 

ratings. 

The Bureau intends to exclude ULI 

from the public HMDA data, as 

proposed, and to exclude NULI if it is 

reported instead of ULI. For the reasons 

discussed above and in the proposal, the 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that excluding ULI and NULI from the 

public HMDA data appropriately 

balances the privacy risks that may be 

created by the disclosure of these fields 

and the benefits of such disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes.87

Application Date 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report, except for 

purchased covered loans, the date the 

application was received or the date 

shown on the application form.88 This 

date must be reported by financial 

institutions as the exact year, month, 

and day, in the format of 

YYYYMMDD.89 Financial institutions 

were required to report this data field 

prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule. The 

Board amended Regulation C in 1989 to 

require reporting of the date the 

application was received as part of its 

implementation of FIRREA.90 Under the 

Board’s disclosure regime, application 

date was excluded from the public 

HMDA data. 

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by continuing to exclude 


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91 82 FR 44586, 44600–01 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

92 Id. at 44600 (describing the utility of 

application date in light of HMDA’s purposes, 

including helping the public and public officials to 

identify possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

93 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(7). 

94FIG, supra note 55, at 81. 

95Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Public Law 94– 

200, sections 301–310, 89 Stat. 1124, 1125–28 

(1975). 

96See 54 FR 51356 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

97 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(28). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report property value for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

98Comment 4(a)(28)–1. 

99FIG, supra note 55, at 104. 

100 Dodd-Frank Act section 1094(3)(A)(iv), 12 

U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(A). 

101 82 FR 44586, 44601–02; 44607–08 (Sept. 25, 

2017). 

102See id. at 44601, 44607 (describing the utility 

of loan amount and property value in light of 

HMDA’s purposes, including helping the public 

and public officials to determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing needs of their 

communities, and to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and enforce 

antidiscrimination statutes). 

103The dollar amount limitation on the original 

principal obligation as provided under 12 U.S.C. 

1717(b)(2) and 12 U.S.C. 1454(a)(2) refers to the 

annual maximum principal loan balance for a 

mortgage acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

(the ‘‘GSEs’’). The FHFA is responsible for 

determining the maximum conforming loan limits 

for mortgages acquired by the GSEs. See Press 

Release, Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency, FHFA Announces 

Increase in Maximum Conforming Loan Limits for 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2017 (Nov. 23, 

2016), available at https://www.fhfa.gov/Media/ 

PublicAffairs/Pages/FHFA-Announces-Increase-inMaximum-Conforming-Loan-Limits-for-Fannie-Maeand-Freddie-Mac-in-2017.aspx. 

104See 24 CFR 203.18 (providing maximum 

amounts for eligible mortgages). 

application date.91 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing application 

date in the loan-level HMDA data 

released to the public would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes.92

A few industry commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

continue to exclude application date 

from the public HMDA data. Two of 

these commenters stated that excluding 

application date, along with the other 

data points the Bureau proposed to 

exclude, would reduce re-identification 

risk. Another of these commenters 

stated that excluding this data field, 

along with the other data points the 

Bureau proposed to exclude, would 

reduce the likelihood that community 

bank customers would become victims 

of identity theft or fraud. 

The Bureau intends to exclude 

application date from the public HMDA 

data, as proposed. For the reasons 

discussed above and in the proposal, the 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that excluding application date from the 

public HMDA data appropriately 

balances the privacy risks that may be 

created by the disclosure of this field 

and the benefits of such disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Loan Amount and Property Value 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the amount of the 

covered loan or the amount applied 

for.93 For closed-end mortgage loans, 

open-end lines of credit, and reverse 

mortgages, this amount is the amount to 

be repaid as disclosed on the legal 

obligation, the amount of credit 

available to the borrower, and the initial 

principal limit, respectively. Loan 

amount must be submitted by financial 

institutions in numeric form reflecting 

the exact dollar amount of the loan.94

Prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, this 

data field was reported rounded to the 

nearest thousand; it was publicly 

disclosed without modification under 

the Board’s disclosure regime. Although 

HMDA has always required financial 

institutions to report information about 

the dollar amount of a financial 

institution’s mortgage lending activity,95

the Board amended Regulation C in 

1989 to require reporting of loan amount 

on a loan-level basis as part of its 

implementation of FIRREA.96

Regulation C also requires financial 

institutions to report the value of the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan.97 Financial 

institutions must report the value they 

relied on in making the credit decision, 

such as an appraisal value or the 

purchase price of the property.98

Property value must be reported in 

numeric form reflecting the exact dollar 

amount of the value the financial 

institution relied on.99 The Bureau 

added the requirement to report 

property value the financial institution 

relied on in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

to implement the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

amendment to HMDA providing for the 

collection and reporting of the value of 

the real property pledged or proposed to 

be pledged as collateral.100

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA dataset disclosed to 

the public by disclosing the midpoint 

for the $10,000 interval into which the 

reported loan amount or property value 

falls instead of the exact value 

reported.101 For example, for a reported 

loan amount or property value of 

$117,834, the Bureau would disclose 

$115,000 as the midpoint between 

values equal to $110,000 and less than 

$120,000. The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing reported 

loan amount and property value in the 

loan-level HMDA data released to the 

public would likely substantially 

facilitate the re-identification of an 

applicant or borrower and that this risk 

would not be justified by the benefits of 

the disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes.102 The Bureau also proposed 

to include an indicator of whether the 

reported loan amount exceeds the 

applicable dollar amount limitation on 

the original principal obligation in effect 

at the time of application or origination 

as provided under 12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(2) 

and 12 U.S.C. 1454(a)(2) (GSE 

conforming loan limit).103 The Bureau 

sought comment on whether to add a 

similar indicator for the applicable limit 

for loans eligible for insurance by the 

Federal Housing Administration (FHA 

conforming loan limit).104

A few commenters opposed the 

Bureau’s proposal to disclose loan 

amount in $10,000 bins and asked the 

Bureau to disclose more precise loan 

amount values. A group of consumer 

advocate commenters and an industry 

commenter each recommended 

disclosing loan amount rounded to the 

nearest $1,000, like under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. They asserted that 

$10,000 bins would disproportionately 

affect the utility of the data for smaller 

loans. Conversely, an industry 

commenter opposed the Bureau’s 

proposal and asked the Bureau to 

disclose less precise loan amount 

values, stating that $10,000 bins would 

insufficiently obscure the reported value 

for larger loans, such as multifamily 

loans, and thus would yield insufficient 

protection against re-identification 

relative to smaller loans. As with loan 

amount, a few commenters urged the 

Bureau to disclose more precise 

property values, such as by rounding to 

the nearest $1,000, while an industry 

commenter supported disclosing less 

precise values. An industry commenter 

stated that property value, or the 

property value derived from loan-tovalue ratio, could be matched to 

publicly-available property or appraisal 

records. 

One industry commenter supported 

the Bureau’s proposal to disclose loan 

amount and property value in $10,000 

bins because it believed these bins 

would help prevent re-identification of 

applicants and borrowers while 

preserving much of the utility of these 

data fields. A government agency 

commenter supported the proposed GSE 


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105Unlike combined loan-to-value ratio, which 

includes the total amount of all debt secured by the 

property securing the loan reported, the loan-tovalue ratio includes only the amount of the reported 

loan itself. 

106Similarly, an adversary could narrow the 

possible values for property value. 

107 12 CFR 1281.11 (bank housing goals); 12 CFR 

1282.12 (GSE housing goals). 

conforming loan limit indicator because 

the indicator would allow it to continue 

using public HMDA data to identify the 

market size for conforming loans for the 

purpose of setting housing goals for its 

regulated entities and to perform other 

analyses related to the conforming loan 

limit. Similarly, a group of consumer 

advocate commenters supported the 

proposed GSE conforming loan limit 

flag. These commenters also 

recommended adding a similar 

indicator for the FHA conforming loan 

limit, stating that analysis of loans 

below the FHA conforming loan limit 

was important for fair lending purposes. 

The Bureau determines that 

disclosing loan amount in $10,000 

intervals will create a meaningful 

reduction in record uniqueness in the 

HMDA data when evaluating three data 

fields that the Bureau concludes 

contribute most to re-identification risk: 

Loan amount, census tract, and lender 

name. Although the Bureau recognizes 

that disclosing loan amount in $10,000 

intervals will reduce the utility of this 

field compared to disclosing more 

precise amounts, it believes it will still 

allow users to rely on loan amount to 

further HMDA’s purposes to some 

degree. For example, $10,000 intervals 

will still allow users to have some 

understanding of the amount of credit 

that financial institutions have made 

available to consumers in certain 

communities and the extent to which 

such institutions are providing credit in 

varying amounts. 

The Bureau acknowledges that, as 

commenters stated, $10,000 intervals 

create a larger reduction in uniqueness 

for small loan amounts—providing more 

privacy protection and less data 

utility—and a smaller reduction in 

uniqueness for large loan amounts— 

providing less privacy protection and 

more data utility—relative to the 

baseline reduction in uniqueness for all 

loans in the dataset. To address the fact 

that the proposed uniform binning 

approach would not yield the same 

balance of benefits and risks across all 

loan amounts, the Bureau considered 

whether it could apply bin sizes that 

differed by reported loan amount. For 

example, the Bureau could create bin 

sizes that were a function of loan 

amount, such as a percentage of the 

reported value. However, this approach 

may allow adversaries to determine the 

precise loan amount by reversing the 

function applied to the reported loan 

amount value. The Bureau also 

considered graduated bin sizes for 

segments of loans. However, the larger 

bin sizes in a graduated binning scheme 

would disproportionately reduce the 

utility of the data in more expensive 

geographic regions. Graduated bin sizes 

also would more significantly impair 

overall data utility compared to $10,000 

bins, as users who wish to work with a 

consistently binned dataset would have 

to use the largest bin size for all loans. 

Finally, identifying a basis upon which 

to segment loan amount values into 

different sized bins presents challenges. 

In principle, the Bureau could analyze 

the reported HMDA data annually and 

determine segments based on the 

distribution of loan amounts in a given 

year to try to achieve more consistent 

reduction in uniqueness across loans of 

all sizes. In practice, however, 

resubmissions and late submissions may 

change the distribution of loan amounts, 

creating a risk that the Bureau would 

lack sufficient time to determine and 

apply the appropriate bins before 

disclosing the modified loan/ 

application registers. 

Regarding an industry commenter’s 

claim that property value could be 

matched to public appraisal records and 

could be derived from the loan-to-value 

ratio, the Bureau notes that appraisal 

records are not public, and the HMDA 

data will not contain loan-to-value 

ratio.105 However, the Bureau believes 

that identified property tax records or 

real estate transaction records may 

contain values close enough to the 

reported property value that property 

value would substantially facilitate the 

re-identification of a loan. Property 

value was not required to be reported 

prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule. The 

Bureau nevertheless expects its 

uniqueness to be similar to the 

uniqueness of the values reported for 

loan amount and believes that 

disclosing property value in $10,000 

intervals would create a meaningful 

reduction in uniqueness. The Bureau 

concludes that disclosing property value 

in $10,000 intervals would still allow 

data users to determine the general 

values of properties for which financial 

institutions are providing financing. As 

with loan amount, the Bureau 

considered approaches that would bin 

property value in different intervals 

depending on the reported value, but for 

the reasons described above, the Bureau 

is not adopting such approaches. 

Disclosing property value in $10,000 

intervals also reduces adversaries’ 

potential ability to use combined loanto-value ratio to derive the reported loan 

amount. As mentioned above, the 

Bureau intends to disclose without 

modification combined loan-to-value 

ratio. Although both loan amount and 

property value would likely 

substantially facilitate re-identification, 

the Bureau concludes that loan amount 

will be easier to match to public records 

where available, because public records 

that contain the loan amount will likely 

contain the exact loan amount reported 

under HMDA. In contrast, the Bureau 

concludes that financial institutions 

will likely report the appraisal value as 

the property value, and the appraisal 

value is not publicly available. 

However, even with property value 

disclosed in $10,000 intervals, if the 

reported combined loan-to-value ratio 

for a particular transaction is actually 

the loan-to-value ratio, the loan amount, 

property value, and combined loan-tovalue ratio feasibly could be used to 

narrow the possible values for loan 

amount, thus decreasing the reduction 

in record uniqueness relative to $10,000 

intervals.106 The extent to which this 

possible interaction could decrease the 

benefits of binning loan amount is 

uncertain. As an initial matter, under 

the 2018 HMDA Final Rule, certain 

small insured depository institutions 

and insured credit unions will not be 

required to report combined loan-tovalue ratio or property value, so the 

interaction at issue will not be possible 

for many loans. Moreover, the 

percentage of transactions for which the 

reported combined loan-to-value ratio 

will equal the loan-to-value ratio will 

vary based on market conditions, and 

the Bureau believes that adversaries will 

not be able to determine exactly when 

the combined loan-to-value and loan-tovalue ratios are equal for a given 

transaction. Finally, even if an 

adversary could narrow for a particular 

transaction the range of possible loan 

amount values, the narrowed range may 

not yield a record that is unique on the 

data fields that most contribute to reidentification. 

The Bureau proposed the GSE 

conforming loan limit indicator to 

facilitate the accuracy and transparency 

of the FHFA Housing Goals program.107

FHFA has historically relied on public 

HMDA data to set statutorily-required 

housing goals for the GSEs to ensure the 

GSEs and the public are aware of and 

can provide feedback on FHFA’s 

methodology. Binning loan amount as 

proposed would significantly reduce the 

accuracy of many calculations necessary 

to set these goals and measure 

performance, which hinge on 

determining whether loans meet the 


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108The GSE conforming loan limit indicator will 

be included in the annual loan-level disclosure of 

all reported HMDA data combined, rather than in 

the modified loan/application register for each 

financial institution. 

109 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(8)(ii). 

110Comment 4(a)(8)(ii)–5. 

111Comment 4(a)(8)(ii)–4. 

112FIG, supra note 55, at 81. 

113 54 FR 51356, 51363 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

114 82 FR 44586, 44602–03 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

115 Id. at 44602 (describing the utility of action 

taken date in light of HMDA’s purposes, including 

helping the public and public officials to identify 

possible discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

116 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9)(i). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report property address for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

117Comment 4(a)(9)(i)–1. For applications that 

did not result in an origination, the address 

corresponds to the location of the property 

proposed to secure the loan as identified by the 

applicant. Id. 

118Comment 4(a)(9)(i)–2. 

119 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(H). 

120 82 FR 44586, 44603–04 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

121 Id. at 44603 (describing the utility of property 

address in light of HMDA’s purposes, including 

helping the public and public officials to determine 

whether financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities and to identify 

possible discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

122A hashed value is a value generated by a 

secure hash algorithm. A hash algorithm is 

designed to be non-invertible, meaning that the 

original value, in this case the reported property 

address, could not be derived from the hashed 

value. 

GSE conforming loan limit. Although 

FHFA could use non-public HMDA data 

for modeling purposes, this would 

result in FHFA, its regulated entities, 

and the public working from different 

datasets to evaluate the accuracy and 

transparency of the FHFA Housing 

Goals program. 

In contrast to the GSE conforming 

loan limit indicator, a FHA conforming 

loan limit indicator would not serve a 

similarly compelling purpose. 

Disclosing loan amount in $10,000 

intervals will sometimes reduce the 

ability of the public to determine 

whether a loan is at or above the FHA 

conforming loan limit. However, no 

commenter stated that the absence of 

this information would impact the 

FHA’s ability to perform statutorilyrequired functions. Additionally, no 

commenter addressed the question of 

whether factors not reflected in the 

HMDA data would affect the accuracy of 

a FHA conforming loan limit indicator, 

and the Bureau remains concerned 

about its ability to accurately produce 

such an indicator using the HMDA data. 

The Bureau intends to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by disclosing the midpoint for 

the $10,000 interval into which the 

reported loan amount or property value 

falls, as proposed. The Bureau also 

intends to indicate in the data disclosed 

whether the reported loan amount 

exceeds the GSE conforming loan 

limit.108 For the reasons discussed 

above and in the proposal, the Bureau 

determines, based on the information 

currently available to it, that these 

modifications appropriately balance the 

privacy risks that would likely be 

created by the disclosure of these fields 

and the benefits of such disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Action Taken Date 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the date of action 

taken by the financial institution on a 

covered loan or application.109 For 

originated loans, this date is generally 

the date of closing or the date of account 

opening.110 Regulation C provides some 

flexibility in reporting the date for other 

types of actions taken, such as 

applications denied, withdrawn, or 

approved by the institution but not 

accepted by the applicant. For example, 

for applications approved but not 

accepted, a financial institution may 

report ‘‘any reasonable date, such as the 

approval date, the deadline for 

accepting the offer, or the date the file 

was closed,’’ provided it adopts a 

generally consistent approach.111 This 

date is submitted by financial 

institutions as the exact year, month, 

and day, in the format of 

YYYYMMDD.112 Financial institutions 

were required to report this data field 

prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule. As 

with the application date, the Board 

added the requirement to report the 

action taken date as part of the 

amendments to Regulation C that 

implemented FIRREA.113 Under the 

Board’s disclosure regime, action taken 

date was excluded from the public 

HMDA data. 

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by continuing to exclude action 

taken date.114 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing action taken 

date in the loan-level HMDA data 

released to the public would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.115 A few 

industry commenters supported the 

Bureau’s proposal to continue to 

exclude action taken date from the 

HMDA data disclosed to the public. 

The Bureau intends to exclude action 

taken date from the public HMDA data, 

as proposed. For the reasons discussed 

above and in the proposal, the Bureau 

determines, based on the information 

currently available to it, that excluding 

action taken date from the public 

HMDA data appropriately balances the 

privacy risks that may be created by the 

disclosure of this field and the benefits 

of such disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. 

Property Address 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the address of the 

property securing the loan or, in the 

case of an application, proposed to 

secure the loan.116 This address 

corresponds to the property identified 

on the legal obligation related to the 

covered loan.117 The property address 

reported by financial institutions 

includes the street address, city name, 

State name, and zip code.118 The Bureau 

added the requirement to report 

property address in the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule to implement the DoddFrank Act’s amendment to HMDA 

providing for the collection and 

reporting of, ‘‘as the Bureau may 

determine to be appropriate, the parcel 

number that corresponds to the real 

property pledged or proposed to be 

pledged as collateral.’’ 119

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding property 

address.120 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing property 

address in the loan-level HMDA data 

released to the public would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.121

A few industry commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

exclude property address from the 

public HMDA data. A group of 

consumer advocate commenters 

recommended that the Bureau disclose 

a hashed value for each property 

address in lieu of the property 

address.122 According to these 

commenters, disclosure of a hashed 

value in place of property address 

would help data users track ‘‘loan 

flipping,’’ which these commenters 

described as a predatory practice in 

which lenders target borrowers for a 

series of refinancings that increase the 

borrower’s debt and strip equity. These 

commenters did not address whether 

the recommended hashed value should 

be used in place of a particular property 

address from year to year, i.e., every 

time that the particular property address 

is included in reported HMDA data. 


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123 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(ii). 

124Comment 4(a)(1)(ii)–1. 

125 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(4). 

126 82 FR 44586, 44604 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

127 Id. (describing the utility of age in light of 

HMDA’s purposes, including helping the public 

and public officials to determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing needs of their 

communities and to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and enforce 

antidiscrimination statutes). 

128Under Federal law, age 62 or higher is 

considered to be older age for certain purposes. See, 

e.g., 24 CFR 206.33 (concerning eligibility for a 

home equity conversion mortgage); 12 CFR 

1002.2(o) (defining ‘‘elderly’’ as 62 or older). 129See 82 FR 44586, 44604 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

The Bureau declines to disclose a 

hashed value in place of the property 

address. The Bureau finds that a hashed 

value used only within a particular 

year’s HMDA data would have limited 

value for studying loan flipping. 

However, if a hashed value were carried 

over from year to year, the Bureau is 

concerned that, if one transaction 

related to the property were reidentified, the hashed value could be 

used to re-identify every loan secured 

by the property in any other year’s 

HMDA data. The Bureau also finds it 

would be difficult to develop a hashing 

algorithm that recognizes, with 

certainty, if a reported property address 

is unique, given slight differences in 

how property addresses may be 

reported. 

The Bureau intends to exclude 

property address from the public HMDA 

data, as proposed. For the reasons 

discussed above and in the proposal, the 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that excluding property address from 

the public HMDA data appropriately 

balances the privacy risks that may be 

created by the disclosure of this field 

and the benefits of such disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Age 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the age of the 

applicant or borrower.123 A financial 

institution complies with this 

requirement by reporting age, as of the 

application date reported, as the number 

of whole years derived from the date of 

birth as shown on the application 

form.124 The Bureau added the 

requirement to report age in the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule to implement the 

Dodd-Frank Act’s amendment to HMDA 

providing for the collection and 

reporting of age.125

The Bureau proposed to disclose age 

binned into the following ranges: 25 to 

34; 35 to 44; 45 to 54; 55 to 64; and 65 

to 74. The Bureau also proposed to 

bottom-code age under 25 and to topcode age over 74.126 The Bureau 

initially determined that disclosing 

reported age in the public HMDA data 

would likely disclose information about 

the applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.127

The Bureau also proposed to indicate 

whether a reported age is 62 or higher 

to enhance the utility of the data for 

identifying the particular fair lending 

risks that may be posed with regard to 

older populations.128 The Bureau 

recognized that an effect of this 

indicator would be to divide the 55 to 

64 bin into two bins, 55 to 61 and 62 

to 64. The Bureau sought comment on 

whether, instead of binning age as 

proposed and indicating whether a 

reported age is 62 or higher, the Bureau 

should disclose reported ages of 55 to 74 

in ranges of 55 to 61 and 62 to 74. 

An industry commenter expressed 

support for the Bureau’s proposal to 

modify reported age. A group of 

consumer advocate commenters 

expressed general support for the 

Bureau’s proposal. These commenters 

stated that applicant and borrower age 

is vital for fair lending enforcement and 

to identify potential unfair and 

deceptive lending. These commenters 

also stated that, in the years before the 

2008 financial crisis, abusive lenders 

targeted older adults, especially older 

adults of color, and that abuses also 

occurred in the reverse mortgage market 

for adults over age 62. These 

commenters expressed support for the 

Bureau’s proposal to indicate whether a 

reported age is 62 or higher. These 

commenters also expressed a preference 

for the proposed bins and indicator 

approach to the alternative the Bureau 

considered (binning reported ages of 55 

to 74 in ranges of 55 to 61 and 62 to 74), 

noting that the proposed bins would 

provide more precise data with respect 

to borrowers newly eligible for reverse 

mortgages (i.e., 62- to 64-year old 

borrowers). Finally, these commenters 

asked the Bureau to top-code age at 84, 

instead of 74. They stated that 

Americans are living longer, and topcoding age at 84 would help the public 

identify reverse mortgage and other 

lending patterns affecting the oldest 

seniors, including any fair lending or 

affordability concerns. 

An industry commenter expressed 

opposition to the Bureau’s proposal and 

recommended that the Bureau exclude 

age entirely from the public HMDA 

data. The commenter expressed concern 

that disclosing age could facilitate reidentification of applicants and 

borrowers and enable adversaries to 

prey on vulnerable age groups. 

The Bureau acknowledges the risks 

identified by the industry commenter. 

However, as explained in the proposal, 

applicant or borrower age would assist 

users in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes by 

allowing users to examine potential age 

discrimination in lending.129 Applicant 

or borrower age would also assist in 

determining whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities, including 

the needs of various age cohorts. 

The Bureau determines that 

indicating whether the reported age is 

62 or higher would provide the greater 

utility identified by the commenters, as 

compared to the alternative bins about 

which the Bureau sought comment. 

Additionally, this approach would 

result in more consistent binning of the 

data and would allow analysis of the 

HMDA data in combination with data 

found in other public data sources, such 

as U.S. Census Bureau data, to further 

HMDA’s purposes. The Bureau 

determines that the difference in 

privacy protection provided by the 

proposed approach compared to the 

alternative is minimal and is justified by 

the benefits of the proposed approach. 

Finally, the Bureau believes that topcoding age over 84 could allow greater 

visibility into lending practices with 

respect to the oldest consumers and 

could further HMDA’s purposes: 

Specifically, such disclosure could 

permit the public and public officials to 

better understand whether lenders are 

serving the housing needs of the oldest 

seniors of their communities and to 

observe lending patterns relating to such 

consumers, a typically fixed-income 

population that is engaging in increased 

dwelling-secured borrowing with 

respect to which there is little public 

data currently available. However, the 

Bureau believes this approach also 

could increase privacy risk. The Bureau 

believes the reported HMDA data likely 

will not include significant numbers of 

records for applicants and borrowers 

over age 84, which could pose reidentification risk. Thus, the harm and 

sensitivity risks identified in the 

proposal may be heightened to the 

extent that adversaries could re-identify 

the oldest borrowers. Based on the 

information currently available to it, in 

light of the potential risks and benefits 

of this approach, the Bureau determines 

not to top-code age over 84. 

The Bureau intends to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 


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130 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(15)(i). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report credit score for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

131 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(15)(ii). 

132FIG, supra note 55, at 94–95. 

133 Id. at 95–96. 

134 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(I). 

135 82 FR 44586, 44604–06 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

136 Id. at 44605 (describing the utility of credit 

score in light of HMDA’s purposes, including 

helping the public and public officials to determine 

whether financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities and to identify 

possible discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

137Regarding the consumer advocate 

commenters’ recommendation that the Bureau 

disclose credit scores in aggregate form, the Bureau 

will consider, as it does in the ordinary course of 

its business, whether to make additional 

information related to mortgage lending available to 

the public. 

138 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(23). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report debt-to-income ratio for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

139FIG, supra note 55, at 101. 

140 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(J). 

141 82 FR 44586, 44606–07 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

public by disclosing age binned into the 

following ranges: 25 to 34; 35 to 44; 45 

to 54; 55 to 64; and 65 to 74, as 

proposed. The Bureau also intends to 

bottom-code age under 25 and to topcode age over 74. Finally, the Bureau 

intends to indicate whether reported age 

is 62 or higher. For the reasons 

discussed above and in more detail in 

the proposal, the Bureau determines, 

based on the information currently 

available to it, that these modifications 

appropriately balance the privacy risks 

that would likely be created by the 

disclosure of this field and the benefits 

of such disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. 

Credit Score 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report, except for 

purchased covered loans, the credit 

score or scores relied on in making the 

credit decision and the name and 

version of the scoring model used to 

generate each credit score.130 It also 

provides that, for purposes of this 

requirement, ‘‘credit score’’ has the 

meaning set forth in section 609(f)(2)(A) 

of the Fair Credit Reporting Act 

(FCRA).131 Financial institutions must 

report credit score as a numeric field, 

e.g., 650.132 Financial institutions must 

also report a code from a specified list 

to indicate the name and version of the 

scoring model used to generate each 

credit score reported.133 The Bureau 

added the requirement to report these 

data in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule to 

implement the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

amendment to HMDA providing for the 

collection and reporting of ‘‘the credit 

score of mortgage applicants and 

mortgagors, in such form as the Bureau 

may prescribe.’’ 134

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding credit score.135 The 

Bureau initially determined that 

disclosing credit score in the loan-level 

HMDA data released to the public 

would likely disclose information about 

the applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.136

A few industry commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

exclude credit score from the public 

HMDA data. Another industry 

commenter opposed the Bureau’s 

proposal to exclude credit score. The 

commenter stated that it would be 

extremely difficult to re-identify 

applicants or borrowers using this data 

field because credit scores are not 

publicly available, and that sensitivity 

alone should not be a basis for 

withholding data from the public where 

re-identification risk is low. The 

commenter stated further that credit 

scores are critically important in 

identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns, enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes, and 

determining whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities, because 

they are an important factor in financial 

institutions’ underwriting decisions. 

A group of consumer advocate 

commenters also opposed the Bureau’s 

proposal to exclude credit score. These 

commenters stated that credit scores are 

essential in fair lending analysis 

because they help determine whether 

similarly situated applicants are treated 

differently solely due to their race or 

gender. The commenters recommended 

that, to address the privacy concerns 

identified by the Bureau, the Bureau 

‘‘normalize’’ reported credit scores 

before disclosure to the public. The 

commenters suggested that the Bureau 

either disclose credit scores: (1) As 

‘‘z-scores,’’ which the commenters 

described as ‘‘a measure of a credit 

score’s place in the overall distribution 

of credit scores for loan applicants that 

year,’’ or (2) in ‘‘percentile ranges based 

on the distribution of loan applicants’ 

credit scores.’’ The commenters also 

recommended that, if the Bureau 

excludes credit score from the public 

HMDA data, the Bureau disclose credit 

scores in aggregate form by census tract, 

for all lenders and for each lender. 

According to the commenters, this 

information would help the public 

assess whether the industry as a whole 

or individual lenders are treating 

similarly situated neighborhoods 

differently due to the racial, ethnic, 

income, or age composition of the 

neighborhood. 

The Bureau finds that the industry 

commenter underestimates the reidentification risk associated with the 

HMDA data, even modified as proposed, 

and that, where re-identification risk is 

present, sensitivity alone is a basis for 

modification under the balancing test. 

The Bureau declines to adopt the 

consumer advocate commenters’ 

recommendation that the Bureau 

normalize the credit score data and 

disclose the normalized data. The 

Bureau finds that this alternative would 

not reduce privacy risks to the point 

that they would be justified by the 

disclosure benefits. Disclosure of a 

normalized credit score would reflect 

the applicant’s or borrower’s reported 

credit score in relation to all other 

applicants and borrowers in a particular 

year’s HMDA data. Thus, the Bureau 

believes that, if the HMDA data were reidentified, disclosure of this information 

would likely create a risk of harm or 

sensitivity similar to the risk created by 

disclosure of reported credit score.137

The Bureau intends to exclude credit 

score from the public HMDA data, as 

proposed. For the reasons discussed 

above and in the proposal, the Bureau 

determines, based on the information 

currently available to it, that excluding 

credit score from the public HMDA data 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that may be created by the disclosure of 

this field and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Debt-to-Income Ratio 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report, except for 

purchased covered loans, the ratio of the 

applicant’s or borrower’s total monthly 

debt to the total monthly income relied 

on in making the credit decision (debtto-income ratio).138 The debt-to-income 

ratio must be reported as a 

percentage.139 The Bureau added the 

requirement to report debt-to-income 

ratio in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

using its discretionary authority 

provided by the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

amendment to HMDA to require the 

reporting of ‘‘such other information as 

the Bureau may require.’’ 140

The Bureau proposed to disclose 

reported debt-to-income ratio of greater 

than or equal to 40 percent and less than 

50 percent.141 The Bureau also proposed 

to bin reported debt-to-income ratio 


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142See id. at 44606 (describing the utility of debtto-income ratio in light of HMDA’s purposes, 

including helping the public and public officials to 

determine whether financial institutions are serving 

the housing needs of their communities and to 

identify possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 143See id. at 44606–07. 

144 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(31). 

145 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(32). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report affordable units for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

146 12 CFR 1003.2(n). Under Regulation C, a 

covered loan is secured by a multifamily dwelling 

if it is secured by the entire multifamily dwelling; 

thus, a loan to purchase an entire apartment 

building or condominium building would be a loan 

secured by a multifamily dwelling, while a loan to 

purchase an individual condominium in that 

building would not be. Comment 2(n)–3. 

147 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(J). 

148 82 FR 44586, 44597–99 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

values into the following ranges: 20 

percent to less than 30 percent; 30 

percent to less than 40 percent; and 50 

percent to less than 60 percent. In 

addition, the Bureau proposed to 

bottom-code reported debt-to-income 

ratio values under 20 percent and to 

top-code reported debt-to-income ratios 

of 60 percent or higher. The Bureau 

initially determined that disclosing 

reported debt-to-income ratio would 

likely disclose information about the 

applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive and that, for certain debt-toincome ratio values, this risk would not 

be justified by the benefits of the 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes.142

The Bureau also initially determined 

that, for many financial institutions, 

debt-to-income ratio of 36 percent 

serves as an internal underwriting 

benchmark, so that the ability to 

identify whether an applicant’s debt-toincome ratio is above or below this 

value would help users analyzing 

lending patterns to control for factors 

that might provide a legitimate 

explanation for disparities in credit or 

pricing decisions. The Bureau sought 

comment on whether the benefits of 

disclosing more granular information 

concerning debt-to-income ratio values 

at or around 36 percent would justify 

the risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy such disclosure would likely 

create, and how such information 

should be disclosed. 

An industry commenter expressed 

support for the Bureau’s proposed 

treatment of debt-to-income ratio. A 

group of consumer advocate 

commenters expressed general support 

for the Bureau’s proposal and also urged 

the Bureau to adopt more granular 

disclosure of debt-to-income ratio 

values near 36 percent, agreeing with 

the Bureau that 36 percent is a common 

underwriting benchmark. An industry 

commenter expressed opposition to the 

Bureau’s proposal to bin debt-to-income 

ratio values into ranges, arguing that the 

Bureau should disclose debt-to-income 

ratio without modification. According to 

the commenter, binning reduces the 

utility of the data, thereby hampering 

understanding of lending practices. The 

commenter added that misuse of the 

data would be ‘‘almost impossible’’ 

because, if property address were not 

disclosed, as the Bureau proposed, reidentification of applicants and 

borrowers would be extremely difficult. 

The Bureau finds that the industry 

commenter underestimates the reidentification risk associated with the 

HMDA data, even modified as proposed. 

The Bureau determines that the 

existence of various regulatory, 

guarantor, and investment program 

benchmarks justifies disclosing exact 

debt-to-income ratio values between 40 

and 50 percent, for the reasons set forth 

in more detail in the proposal.143

Further, based on the comment from a 

group of consumer advocates and 

further analysis, the Bureau finds that a 

36 percent debt-to-income ratio serves 

as an internal underwriting benchmark 

for many lenders. The ability to identify 

whether an applicant’s debt-to-income 

ratio is at or above this level therefore 

also would help data users control for 

factors that might provide a legitimate 

explanation for disparities in credit and 

pricing decisions. The Bureau 

determines that the best way to allow 

users to determine whether a value is at 

or above this benchmark is to extend the 

range of debt-to-income values 

disclosed without modification from 

‘‘greater than or equal to 40 percent and 

less than 50 percent’’ to ‘‘greater than or 

equal to 36 percent and less than 50 

percent.’’ The Bureau believes that the 

modifications the Bureau intends to 

apply will reduce the privacy risks 

created by the public disclosure of debtto-income ratio while preserving much 

of the benefits of the data field. 

The Bureau intends to disclose debtto-income ratio as proposed, except that 

it intends to disclose without 

modification debt-to-income ratio 

values greater than or equal to 36 

percent and less than 50 percent instead 

of greater than or equal to 40 percent 

and less than 50 percent. The Bureau 

intends to bin reported debt-to-income 

ratio values into the following ranges: 

20 percent to less than 30 percent; 30 

percent to less than 36 percent; and 50 

percent to less than 60 percent. The 

Bureau also intends to bottom-code 

reported debt-to-income ratio values 

under 20 percent and to top-code 

reported debt-to-income ratios of 60 

percent or higher. For the reasons 

discussed above and in the proposal, the 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that the disclosure of reported debt-toincome ratio values greater than or 

equal to 36 percent and less than 50 

percent, and the modifications it 

intends to apply to other reported debtto-income ratio values, appropriately 

balance the privacy risks that would 

likely be created by the disclosure of 

this field and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Total Units and Affordable Units 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the total number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan (total 

units).144 Regulation C also requires 

financial institutions to report, for 

properties that include multifamily 

dwellings, the number of affordable 

units related to the property. The rule 

defines affordable units as individual 

dwelling units related to the property 

that are income-restricted pursuant to 

Federal, State, or local affordable 

housing programs.145 The rule defines 

‘‘multifamily dwelling’’ as a dwelling, 

regardless of construction method, that 

contains five or more individual 

dwelling units.146

The total units and affordable units 

data fields were not reported fields prior 

to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule; the 

Bureau added them to the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule using its discretionary 

authority provided by the Dodd-Frank 

Act’s amendment to HMDA to require 

the reporting of ‘‘such other information 

as the Bureau may require.’’ 147 Prior to 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, however, 

data users could determine whether a 

property was a multifamily property, 

because the ‘‘property type’’ data field— 

which was eliminated under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule—included a code for 

‘‘multifamily.’’ Property type was 

disclosed to the public without 

modification under the Board’s 

disclosure regime. 

The Bureau proposed to disclose 

these data fields to the public as 

reported.148 The Bureau initially 

determined that disclosing these data 

fields would likely present low risk to 

applicant and borrower privacy, and, to 

the extent that disclosing these fields 

would create risk to applicant and 

borrower privacy, that the risks would 


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149 Id. at 44598 (describing in light of HMDA’s 

purposes the utility of total units and affordable 

units—along with the other data fields that the 

Bureau proposed to disclose without modification 

on the basis that they present low privacy risk— 

including helping the public and public officials to 

determine whether financial institutions are serving 

the housing needs of their communities, to 

distribute public-sector investment so as to attract 

private investment to areas where it is needed, and 

to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforce antidiscrimination statutes). 

150 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(34). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report NMLSR ID for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

151FIG, supra note 55, at 107–08. 

152 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(F). 

153 82 FR 44586, 44608–09 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

154See id. (describing the utility of NMLSR ID in 

light of HMDA’s purposes, including helping the 

public and public officials to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes). 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.149

Several consumer advocate 

commenters supported the Bureau’s 

proposal to disclose without 

modification these data fields. One 

consumer advocate commenter stated 

that multifamily loan data, in general, 

would help the public assess how 

lending practices affect low- and 

moderate-income tenants. This 

commenter also stated that data on total 

units would help data users determine 

how many households are affected by a 

loan and that the data on affordable 

units would provide valuable 

information about the financing of 

affordable housing. 

An industry commenter opposed the 

proposal to disclose total units and 

affordable units for multifamily loans. 

This commenter stated that disclosure 

of this data for multifamily loans would 

create a heightened risk of reidentification, because the number of 

units and number of affordable units 

can vary widely across multifamily 

properties and therefore may allow 

identification of specific properties. The 

commenter requested that, for 

multifamily loans only, the Bureau 

exclude these data fields from the 

publicly available HMDA data if the 

relevant geographic area does not 

include enough multifamily loans to 

protect against re-identification, 

although the commenter did not specify 

the minimum number of loans 

necessary to do so. The commenter 

further recommended that, if there is a 

sufficient number of multifamily loans 

to protect against re-identification, the 

Bureau should disclose total units 

binned into ranges—the commenter 

suggested bins of 5 to 49 and 50 and 

above—and disclose the value reported 

for the number of affordable units as a 

percentage of the number of total units. 

Based on these comments and the 

additional analysis described below in 

this paragraph, the Bureau believes that 

disclosing without modification 

reported values for total units of 5 and 

above in the loan-level HMDA data 

would likely substantially facilitate the 

re-identification of applicants or 

borrowers and that this risk would not 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure. 

The Bureau determines that multifamily 

loans are somewhat more unique than 

other loans in the data and that, in many 

cases, an adversary could match the 

reported total units for multifamily 

loans with publicly available 

information about the number of units 

in a multifamily property, because this 

information is widely available to the 

public from sources including public 

records and real estate websites. 

For these reasons, the Bureau intends 

to modify the loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed to the public so that total 

units are binned into the following 

ranges: 5 to 24; 25 to 49; 50 to 99; 100 

to 149; and 150 and over. The Bureau 

further determines that these 

modifications will reduce reidentification risk while preserving 

much of the benefit from disclosing this 

field, as data users will still be able to 

approximate with some precision how 

many units a particular transaction 

affects. Additionally, under the Bureau’s 

approach, the bins for total units will 

align with the bins used by HUD’s 

Rental Housing Finance Survey—the 

preeminent Federal data source on 

rental housing finance characteristics— 

allowing users to analyze HMDA data in 

combination with data from that survey 

to further HMDA’s purposes. The 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that these modifications appropriately 

balance the privacy risks that would 

likely be created by the disclosure of 

this field and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

The Bureau declines to adopt the bins 

suggested by the commenter—5 to 49 

and 50 and over—because the Bureau 

concludes that these bins would provide 

insufficient precision regarding the 

number of housing units a transaction 

affects. The Bureau believes that the 

bins it is adopting better balance the 

privacy risks and disclosure benefits 

associated with the disclosure of this 

field. 

The Bureau determines that 

disclosure in the loan-level HMDA data 

of affordable units creates minimal risk, 

if any, of substantially facilitating the reidentification of applicants and 

borrowers in the HMDA data. However, 

it determines that, under certain 

circumstances, disclosure without 

modification of affordable units would 

undermine the privacy protection that 

binning total units achieves and that 

this risk is not justified by the benefits 

of disclosure. To reduce this risk, the 

Bureau intends to disclose affordable 

units as a percentage of the value 

reported for total units, rounded to the 

nearest whole number. The Bureau 

determines that this modification 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that would likely be created by the 

disclosure of this field and the benefits 

of such disclosure in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. 

Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 

and Registry Identifier 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to report the unique 

identifier the Nationwide Mortgage 

Licensing System and Registry (NMLSR 

ID) assigned to the mortgage loan 

originator, as defined in Regulation G, 

12 CFR 1007.102, or Regulation H, 12 

CFR 1008.23, as applicable.150 The 

NMLSR ID must be reported in numeric 

form, such as 123450.151 In the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, the Bureau added the 

requirement to report the NMLSR ID to 

implement the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

requirement that financial institutions 

report, ‘‘as the Bureau may determine to 

be appropriate, a unique identifier that 

identifies the loan originator as set forth 

in section 1503 of the [Secure and Fair 

Enforcement for] Mortgage Licensing 

Act of 2008.’’ 152

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding the NMLSR ID.153

The Bureau initially determined that 

disclosing the NMLSR ID in the loanlevel HMDA data released to the public 

would likely substantially facilitate the 

re-identification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the disclosure 

in light of HMDA’s purposes.154

Several industry commenters and a 

group of consumer advocate 

commenters expressed support for the 

Bureau’s proposal to exclude the 

NMLSR ID. The consumer advocate 

commenters also recommended that, in 

place of the NMLSR ID for the 

individual mortgage loan originator, the 

Bureau disclose the applicable NMLSR 

ID for the loan originator’s company or 

branch. According to these commenters, 

disclosing the company or branch 

identifier would eliminate reidentification risk while helping data 

users assess the practices of mortgage 

brokers in the mortgage lending market, 

which these commenters described as a 

critical but hidden facet of the market. 


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155 Id. 

156 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(i). Insured depository 

institutions and insured credit unions are not 

required to report these data fields for loans or 

applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 

157 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(ii). 

158FIG, supra note 55, at 109–10. AUS result is 

reported using the following codes: Code 1— 

Approve/Eligible; Code 2—Approve/Ineligible; 

Code 3—Refer/Eligible; Code 4—Refer/Ineligible; 

Code 5—Refer with Caution; Code 6—Out of Scope; 

Code 7—Error; Code 8—Accept; Code 9—Caution; 

Code 10—Ineligible; Code 11—Incomplete; Code 

12—Invalid; Code 13—Refer; Code 14—Eligible; 

Code 15—Unable to Determine or Unknown; Code 

16—Other; Code 17—Not applicable; Code 1111— 

Exempt. Id. 

159Comment 4(a)(35)–3.iv. 

160 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(J). 

161 82 FR 44586, 44609 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

162 Id. (describing the utility of AUS result in light 

of HMDA’s purposes, including helping the public 

and public officials to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and enforce 

antidiscrimination statutes). 

163As noted above, the Bureau proposed to 

disclose data on the action taken by the financial 

institution—which includes information that a 

consumer’s application was denied—without 

modification. Id. at 44597–99. 

164 Id. at 44609. 

The Bureau does not intend to 

disclose the NMLSR ID for the loan 

originator’s company or branch as some 

commenters suggested. As discussed in 

the proposal, the Bureau believes the 

NMLSR ID for a loan originator would 

substantially facilitate re-identification 

of the HMDA data because it is required 

to appear on various documents 

associated with the loan, including the 

security instrument, and many 

jurisdictions publicly disclose these real 

estate transaction records in an 

identified form.155 For companies or 

branches with small numbers of 

mortgage loan originators, disclosing the 

company or branch identifier may allow 

adversaries to narrow the potential 

mortgage loan originator NMLSR IDs for 

the loan, which would create similar reidentification concerns. Further, the 

HMDA data reported to the Bureau will 

not contain the NMLSR ID for the loan 

originator’s company or branch. Because 

mortgage loan originators may work out 

of multiple branches, assigning the 

correct branch identifier may not be 

possible. 

The Bureau intends to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding the NMLSR ID, as 

proposed. For the reasons discussed 

above and in more detail in the 

proposal, the Bureau determines, based 

on the information currently available to 

it, that this modification appropriately 

balances the privacy risks that would 

likely be created by the disclosure of 

this field and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Automated Underwriting System Result 

Regulation C requires that, except for 

purchased covered loans, financial 

institutions report ‘‘the name of the 

automated underwriting system used by 

the financial institution to evaluate the 

application and the result generated by 

that automated underwriting 

system.’’ 156 Regulation C defines 

‘‘automated underwriting system’’ for 

the purposes of this requirement as ‘‘an 

electronic tool developed by a 

securitizer, Federal government insurer, 

or Federal government guarantor . . . 

that provides a result regarding the 

credit risk of the applicant and whether 

the covered loan is eligible to be 

originated, purchased, insured, or 

guaranteed by that securitizer, Federal 

government insurer, or Federal 

government guarantor.’’ 157 Financial 

institutions report a code from a 

specified list to indicate the result or 

results generated by the AUS or AUSs 

used.158 Financial institutions may 

report up to five AUS names and five 

AUS results.159 The Bureau added these 

requirements in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule using its discretionary authority 

provided by the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

amendment to HMDA to require the 

reporting of ‘‘such other information as 

the Bureau may require.’’ 160

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding AUS result.161 The 

Bureau initially determined that 

disclosing AUS result in the public 

HMDA data would likely disclose 

information about the applicant or 

borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive and 

that this risk would not be justified by 

the benefits of the disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes.162

A few industry commenters 

supported the Bureau’s proposal to 

exclude AUS result from the public 

HMDA data. Two AUS owner 

commenters also supported the Bureau’s 

proposal to exclude AUS result, 

agreeing with the Bureau’s assessment 

that AUS results are sensitive. These 

commenters also incorporated by 

reference comments they submitted in 

connection with the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule in which they expressed concern 

that AUS result could be used to 

reverse-engineer proprietary 

information about how AUSs are 

designed. 

A group of consumer advocate 

commenters opposed the Bureau’s 

proposal to exclude AUS result. The 

commenters disagreed with the Bureau’s 

assessment that the benefits of 

disclosing AUS result do not justify the 

privacy risks that may be created by 

such disclosure. The commenters stated 

that AUS result can aid significantly in 

fair lending analysis by helping data 

users determine whether similarly 

situated borrowers were treated 

differently due to race, gender, or age. 

The commenters also stated that the 

codes for AUS result—such as 

‘‘Approve/Ineligible,’’ ‘‘Ineligible,’’ or 

‘‘Incomplete’’—would not reflect any 

more negatively on applicants than the 

fact of a loan application denial.163 An 

industry commenter also opposed the 

Bureau’s proposal. The commenter 

stated that it would be extremely 

difficult to re-identify applicants or 

borrowers using AUS result because it is 

not available in other public databases, 

and that sensitivity alone should not be 

a basis for withholding data from the 

public where re-identification risk is 

low. The commenter stated further that 

AUS result is critically important in 

identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns, enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes, 

understanding lenders’ underwriting 

decisions, and determining whether 

financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities. 

The Bureau determines that 

disclosing AUS result in the public 

HMDA data would likely disclose 

information about the applicant or 

borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive. The 

Bureau finds that the industry 

commenter that opposed the Bureau’s 

proposal underestimated the reidentification risk associated with the 

HMDA data, even modified as proposed, 

and that, where re-identification risk is 

present, sensitivity alone is a basis for 

modification under the balancing test. 

The Bureau further finds that the 

consumer advocate commenters 

understated the sensitivity of AUS 

result data. As the Bureau explained in 

the proposal, if a HMDA record were 

associated with an identified applicant 

or borrower, disclosure of a ‘‘negative’’ 

AUS result would reveal information 

that would likely be perceived as 

reflecting negatively on the applicant’s 

or borrower’s willingness or ability to 

pay.164 Most consumers would consider 

such information sensitive and 

disclosure of this information could 

lead to dignity harm or embarrassment. 

The Bureau also determines that scam 

artists and other bad actors could use 

this field to target marketing to 

applicants or borrowers to try to take 

advantage of vulnerable consumers. The 

Bureau determines these privacy risks 

are not justified by the benefits of 

disclosure. 


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165See FIG, supra note 55, at 85–86 (ethnicity), 

88–89 (race), 96 (name and version of credit scoring 

model used), 98 (reasons for denial), 108–09 (AUS 

system name), and 110 (AUS result). Insured 

depository institutions and insured credit unions 

are not required to report these data fields for loans 

or applications that are partially exempt under the 

EGRRCPA. See 83 FR 45325, 45329 (Sept. 7, 2018). 166 Id. 167 Id. 168 82 FR 44586, 44609–10 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

169 Id. 

170The consumer advocate commenters’ request 

seeks clarification about a matter unrelated to the 

subject of this final policy guidance, which is the 

disclosure of loan-level HMDA data. For 

information about how reasons for denial should be 

reported, see 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(16), Comment 

4(a)(16)–1 through –4, and the FIG, supra note 55, 

at 96–98. 

171See supra note 18 and accompanying text; part 

IV.A (responding to comments suggesting that the 

Bureau exclude from the public data or disclose 

only in aggregate form all HMDA data or all new 

data required to be reported under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule). 

172 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 2018); 

80 FR 66128, 66187 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

173 If applicable, the MSA or Metropolitan 

Division will be included in the annual loan-level 

disclosure of all reported HMDA data combined, 

rather than in the modified loan/application register 

for each financial institution. 

The Bureau intends to exclude AUS 

result from the public HMDA data, as 

proposed. For the reasons discussed 

above and in the proposal, the Bureau 

determines, based on the information 

currently available to it, that excluding 

AUS result from the public HMDA data 

appropriately balances the privacy risks 

that may be created by the disclosure of 

this field and the benefits of such 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

Free-Form Text Fields 

Regulation C requires financial 

institutions to use free-form text fields 

to report certain data. Free-form text 

fields are unique in the HMDA data 

reported to the Bureau because they 

allow the reporting of any information, 

rather than certain specified types of 

numbers or codes. Free-form text fields 

must be used to report the name and 

version of the credit scoring model 

used, reasons for denial, AUS system 

name, and AUS result where the 

financial institution reports a code 

indicating that a non-listed value 

applies, and the fields may also be used 

to report certain ethnicity and race 

information, if provided by the 

applicant or borrower.165 Free-form text 

fields used to report race and ethnicity 

must be completed by applicants; all 

other free-form text fields must be 

completed by the financial 

institution.166 The maximum number of 

characters for the AUS system name, 

AUS result, and reasons for denial freeform text fields, including spaces, is 

255; the maximum number of characters 

including spaces for all other free-form 

text fields is 100.167

The Bureau proposed to modify the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public by excluding these free-form text 

fields.168 The Bureau initially 

determined that free-form text fields 

would allow the reporting of any 

information, including information that 

creates risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy, and that, given the amount of 

HMDA data reported each year, it would 

not be feasible for the Bureau to review 

the contents of each free-form text field 

submitted before disclosing the loanlevel HMDA data to the public. The 

Bureau initially determined that 

excluding free-form text fields is a 

modification to the public loan-level 

HMDA data that appropriately balances 

the risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy and the benefits of disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes.169

Two industry commenters supported 

the Bureau’s proposal to exclude freeform text fields. A group of consumer 

advocate commenters requested that the 

Bureau clarify that financial institutions 

cannot use the free-form text field to 

report a reason for denial if the reason 

for denial can be reported using an 

available code. 

The Bureau intends to exclude freeform text fields from the public HMDA 

data, as proposed. For the reasons 

discussed above and in the proposal, the 

Bureau determines, based on the 

information currently available to it, 

that excluding free-form text fields from 

the public HMDA data appropriately 

balances the privacy risks that may be 

created by the disclosure of this field 

and the benefits of such disclosure in 

light of HMDA’s purposes.170

Inclusion of Multifamily Loan Data 

One industry commenter 

recommended that the Bureau not 

disclose any loan-level data concerning 

loans secured by multifamily dwellings. 

The commenter stated that all data 

reported for these applications and 

loans should be excluded from the loanlevel data made available to the public 

because HMDA’s principal focus is 

single-family consumer-purpose 

mortgage transactions; the data required 

to be reported are inapplicable to 

multifamily loans; and multifamily 

lending differs from consumer-purpose 

single-family lending (e.g., because 

different criteria is considered in 

underwriting). 

The Bureau declines to categorically 

exclude multifamily loan data from the 

public HMDA data. As noted above, 

HMDA requires that HMDA data be 

made available to the public except as 

the Bureau determines necessary to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy 

interests.171 Because the Bureau 

determines that most of the HMDA data 

create low, if any, privacy risk, and that 

any risks are justified by the benefits in 

light of HMDA’s purposes, excluding all 

multifamily loan data would be 

inconsistent with the statute and the 

balancing test. In addition, multifamily 

loans have always been included in the 

public HMDA data and Regulation C 

exempts lenders, on a data field-by-data 

field basis, from reporting data that is 

inapplicable to multifamily loans. 

Further, the Bureau concludes that the 

differences between single-family and 

multifamily loans do not reduce the 

value of public multifamily loan data for 

advancing HMDA’s purposes, especially 

considering that multifamily housing is 

a vital component of the nation’s 

housing stock. 

C. Other Comments Received 

Additional Data 

Prior to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, 

Regulation C required financial 

institutions to report the location of the 

property to which the loan or 

application relates, by MSA or by 

Metropolitan Division, by State, by 

county, and by census tract, if the 

institution has a home or branch office 

in that MSA or Metropolitan Division. 

To reduce burden on financial 

institutions, the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

eliminated from this provision the 

requirement to report the MSA or 

Metropolitan Division in which the 

property is located.172 The Bureau 

proposed to identify in the public data, 

for each loan and application that 

would have been subject to this 

provision prior to the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule, the MSA or Metropolitan Division 

in which the property securing or 

proposed to secure the loan is located. 

The Bureau received no comments on 

this proposal. For each loan and 

application with respect to which the 

financial institution reports property 

location information, the Bureau 

intends to identify in the public data the 

applicable MSA or Metropolitan 

Division.173

The FFIEC has historically included 

with its annual loan-level disclosure of 

all reported HMDA data the following 

census and income data: (1) Population 

(total population in tract); (2) Minority 

Population Percent (percentage of 

minority population to total population 

for tract, carried to two decimal places); 

(3) FFIEC Median Family Income 

(FFIEC Median family income in dollars 

for the MSA/MD in which the tract is 


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174See 82 FR 44586, 44589 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

175 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

176 Id. 

177The Bureau noted in the proposed policy 

guidance that the proposal did not reopen any 

portion of the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, as the 

Bureau did not intend, in the policy guidance, to 

revisit any decisions made in that rulemaking. See 

82 FR 44586, 44587 (Sept. 25, 2017). 

located (adjusted annually by FFIEC)); 

(4) Tract to MSA/MD Median Family 

Income Percentage (percentage of tract 

median family income compared to 

MSA/MD median family income, 

carried to two decimal places); (5) 

Number of Owner Occupied Units 

(number of dwellings, including 

individual condominiums, that are lived 

in by the owner); and (6) Number of 1- 

to 4-Family units (dwellings that are 

built to house fewer than five families). 

These data are intended to provide 

additional context to the reported 

HMDA data. The Bureau proposed to 

continue to include these data in the 

combined loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed to the public. 

A group of consumer advocate 

commenters supported the proposal to 

continue to include the census and 

income data the FFIEC historically has 

included with its annual loan-level 

disclosure of all reported HMDA data. 

These commenters stated that the 

Minority Population Percent data can be 

incomplete as a demographic indicator 

and that disclosing the percentages of 

African-American and Hispanic 

populations separately would allow for 

a more accurate picture of the 

experience of geographic areas and 

neighborhoods in lending markets. 

These commenters also stated that, 

although neighborhoods with 

predominantly Asian residents are 

currently not as widespread as 

predominantly Hispanic and AfricanAmerican neighborhoods, adding the 

percentage of Asians living in each 

census tract would be valuable in some 

major markets. 

The Bureau intends that the census 

and income data historically included 

with the annual loan-level disclosure of 

all reported HMDA continues to be 

included with this disclosure. The 

Bureau will consider whether to 

recommend that the FFIEC add to these 

data the more granular minority 

population percentage data the 

consumer advocate commenters 

requested. Issuance of this final policy 

guidance does not require that a 

determination be made concerning the 

addition of the more granular data to the 

FFIEC’s annual loan-level disclosure. 

The FFIEC historically also has 

included with its annual loan-level 

disclosure of all reported HMDA an 

application date indicator reflecting 

whether the application date was before 

January 1, 2004, on or after January 1, 

2004, or not available. The Bureau 

stated in the proposal that it believed 

the application date indicator for preand post-January 2004 is no longer 

useful to the analysis of the HMDA data 

and therefore proposed to no longer 

include the indicator in the combined 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public. The Bureau received no 

comments concerning the application 

date indicator. The Bureau intends that 

the application date indicator 

historically included with the annual 

loan-level disclosure of all reported 

HMDA data is no longer included with 

this disclosure. 

Restricted Access Program 

The Bureau stated in the proposal 

that, as it had previously indicated in 

the supplementary information to the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule, it believed 

HMDA’s public disclosure purposes 

may be furthered by allowing industry 

and community researchers and 

academics to access the unmodified 

HMDA data through a restricted access 

program, for research purposes. The 

Bureau did not propose to establish a 

restricted access program but rather 

stated in the proposal that it continued 

to evaluate whether access to 

unmodified HMDA data should be 

permitted through such a program, the 

options for such a program, and the 

risks and costs that may be associated 

with such a program. 

Two industry commenters expressed 

concerns that such a program would 

create risk that the data would be 

misused or subject to a data breach. A 

group of consumer advocate 

commenters supported such a program 

and offered specific suggestions 

concerning how it should be structured. 

The Bureau will take these comments 

into consideration as it continues to 

evaluate access to unmodified HMDA 

data through a restricted access 

program. Issuance of this final policy 

guidance does not require that a 

determination be made concerning a 

restricted access program. 

Legislative Rulemaking 

A group of industry commenters 

asserted that HMDA requires the Bureau 

to use a legislative rulemaking under the 

APA, rather than policy guidance, to 

identify the modifications to be applied 

to the loan-level HMDA data before it is 

disclosed to the public and suggested 

that the Bureau delay public disclosure 

of the data until such rulemaking is 

complete. Another industry commenter 

expressed concern that the Bureau did 

not use a rulemaking to determine the 

HMDA data to be disclosed to the public 

and stated that the Bureau should not 

disclose any new HMDA data until such 

a rulemaking is undertaken. 

The Bureau determines that its 

adoption of the balancing test in the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule satisfies its 

obligations under HMDA; HMDA does 

not require a legislative rulemaking to 

identify modifications to the public 

HMDA data. As discussed in more 

detail in the proposal,174 in the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, the Bureau 

interpreted HMDA, as amended by the 

Dodd-Frank Act, to require that the 

Bureau use a balancing test to determine 

whether and how HMDA data should be 

modified prior to public disclosure to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy 

while also fulfilling HMDA’s public 

disclosure purposes. The Bureau 

interpreted HMDA to require that public 

HMDA data be modified when the 

disclosure of the unmodified data 

creates risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy interests that are not justified by 

the benefits of such disclosure in light 

of the statutory purposes.175 This 

interpretation implemented HMDA 

sections 304(h)(1)(E) and 304(h)(3)(B) 

because it prescribed standards for 

requiring modification of itemized 

information, for the purpose of 

protecting the privacy interests of 

mortgage applicants and borrowers, that 

is or will be available to the public.176

The final policy guidance applies the 

balancing test to determine whether and 

how to modify the HMDA data reported 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule before 

it is disclosed on the loan level to the 

public. 

Nonetheless, as noted above, even 

though it is not required to do so as a 

matter of law, the Bureau has decided 

that it would be beneficial to undergo a 

separate notice and comment legislative 

rulemaking under the APA to determine 

what HMDA data will be disclosed in 

future years. The Bureau will commence 

such a rulemaking in May 2019. 

Data Collection and Reporting Under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule and Related 

Data Security Concerns 

Several industry commenters raised 

concerns with the data collection and 

reporting requirements imposed on 

financial institutions by the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, and one consumer 

advocate commenter requested that the 

Bureau require the collection and 

reporting of additional data. These 

comments are outside the scope of the 

proposed policy guidance, which 

concerned only the public disclosure of 

data collected and reported, not the 

collection and reporting itself.177 As 


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178 5 U.S.C. 603(a), 604(a). 

179 12 U.S.C. 2801(b). 

180See Home Mortgage Disclosure, 54 FR 51356, 

51357 (Dec. 15, 1989) (recognizing the purpose of 

identifying possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforcing antidiscrimination statutes in light of 

the 1989 amendments to HMDA, which mandated 

the reporting of the race, sex, and income of loan 

applicants). 

181 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 

Protection Act, Public Law 111–203, 124 Stat. 1376, 

1980, 2035–38, 2097–101 (2010). 

182These agencies are the prudential regulators— 

the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 

the National Credit Union Administration, and the 

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—the 

Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Together with the Bureau, these agencies are 

referred to herein as ‘‘the agencies.’’ 

mentioned above, the Bureau intends to 

reconsider aspects of the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule. Concerns about the data 

required to be collected and reported 

under Regulation C are more 

appropriately raised in comments 

submitted in connection with that 

rulemaking. 

Several industry commenters also 

raised data security concerns related to 

the collection and reporting of HMDA 

data, including concerns with the 

system lenders use to submit their 

HMDA data to the Bureau and the 

Bureau’s ability to protect the data 

during transmission and storage. A few 

of these commenters urged the Bureau 

to publish the details of its information 

security practices and procedures to 

address these concerns. One industry 

commenter suggested that financial 

institutions would be liable for a data 

breach at the Bureau that exposed 

nonpublic HMDA data, and also that 

financial institutions would be required 

to mitigate damages incurred by their 

customers as a result of such a breach. 

Again, these comments are outside the 

scope of the proposed policy guidance, 

which concerns the Bureau’s intentional 

disclosure of HMDA data to the public 

as required by the statute. No comments 

received on the proposed policy 

guidance addressed data security 

concerns raised by the Bureau’s 

proposed disclosure of HMDA data as 

required by HMDA. 

Public Education 

A group of industry commenters 

expressed concern that applicants do 

not understand why financial 

institutions must ask for certain 

sensitive information and report the 

information to the Bureau, and why 

such information may be publicly 

disclosed. These commenters suggested 

that explanatory information provided 

at the time of application would be 

especially helpful, and asked that the 

Bureau consult with industry and 

engage in educational efforts concerning 

the purposes and requirements of 

HMDA. A group of consumer advocate 

commenters requested that the Bureau 

produce materials to help data users 

understand the HMDA data to be made 

public and in what form. These 

commenters suggested that the Bureau 

update a chart it has previously made 

public, describing the HMDA data to be 

collected and reported, to reflect if and 

how the data will be made available to 

the public. The Bureau will consider, as 

it does in the ordinary course of its 

business, whether to address the 

concerns expressed in these comments. 

V. Regulatory Requirements 

The Bureau concludes that the final 

policy guidance on Disclosure of LoanLevel HMDA Data is a non-binding 

general statement of policy and/or a rule 

of agency organization, procedure, or 

practice exempt from notice and 

comment rulemaking requirements 

under the APA pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 

553(b). Because no notice of proposed 

rulemaking was required, the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act does not require an 

initial or final regulatory flexibility 

analysis.178 The existing information 

collections contained in Regulation C 

have been approved by the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) and 

assigned OMB control number 3170– 

0008. The Bureau determines that this 

final policy guidance does not impose 

any new or revise any existing 

recordkeeping, reporting, or disclosure 

requirements on covered entities or 

members of the public that would be 

collections of information requiring 

OMB approval under the Paperwork 

Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501, et seq. 

The Bureau has a continuing interest in 

the public’s opinions regarding this 

determination. At any time, comments 

regarding this determination may be 

sent to the Bureau of Consumer 

Financial Protection (Attention: PRA 

Office), 1700 G Street NW, Washington 

DC 20552, or by email to CFPB_Public_

PRA@cfpb.gov. The Bureau stated these 

conclusions in the proposed policy 

guidance and did not receive any 

comments on them. 

VI. Congressional Review Act 

Pursuant to the Congressional Review 

Act (5 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Bureau 

plans to submit a report containing this 

policy guidance and other required 

information to each House of the 

Congress and the Comptroller General. 

The Bureau plans to make such a 

submission at least 60 days prior to the 

date the Bureau will first publish loanlevel HMDA data consistent with this 

policy guidance. The Bureau expects to 

publish such information on March 29, 

2019. The Office of Information and 

Regulatory Affairs has designated this 

policy guidance as a ‘‘major rule’’ under 

5 U.S.C. 804(2). 

VII. Final Policy Guidance on 

Disclosure of Loan-Level HMDA Data 

The text of the final policy guidance 

is as follows: 

Policy Guidance on Disclosure of LoanLevel HMDA Data 

A. Background 

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 

(HMDA), 12 U.S.C. 2801 et seq., requires 

certain financial institutions to collect, 

report, and disclose data about their 

mortgage lending activity. HMDA is 

implemented by Regulation C, 12 CFR 

part 1003. HMDA identifies its purposes 

as providing the public and public 

officials with sufficient information to 

enable them to determine whether 

financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of the communities in 

which they are located, and to assist 

public officials in their determination of 

the distribution of public sector 

investments in a manner designed to 

improve the private investment 

environment.179 In 1989, the Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System (Board) recognized a third 

HMDA purpose of identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes, 

which now appears with HMDA’s other 

purposes in Regulation C.180

In 2010, Congress enacted the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 

Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act).181

Among other changes, the Dodd-Frank 

Act expanded the scope of information 

relating to mortgage applications and 

loans that must be collected, reported, 

and disclosed under HMDA and 

authorized the Bureau to require by rule 

financial institutions to collect, report, 

and disclose additional information. 

The Dodd-Frank Act amendments to 

HMDA also added new section 

304(h)(1)(E), which directs the Bureau 

to develop regulations, in consultation 

with the agencies identified in section 

304(h)(2),182 that ‘‘modify or require 

modification of itemized information, 

for the purpose of protecting the privacy 

interests of the mortgage applicants or 

mortgagors, that is or will be available 

to the public.’’ Section 304(h)(3)(B), also 

added by the Dodd-Frank Act, directs 


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183Section 304(h)(3)(A) provides that a 

modification under section 304(h)(1)(E) shall apply 

to information concerning ‘‘(i) credit score data . . . 

in a manner that is consistent with the purpose 

described in paragraph (1)(E); and (ii) age or any 

other category of data described in paragraph (5) or 

(6) of subsection (b), as the Bureau determines to 

be necessary to satisfy the purpose described in 

paragraph (1)(E), and in a manner consistent with 

that purpose.’’ 12 U.S.C. 2803(h)(3)(A). 

184See generally Home Mortgage Disclosure 

(Regulation C), 80 FR 66128 (Oct. 28, 2015); see also 

Home Mortgage Disclosure (Regulation C), 80 FR 

69567 (Nov. 10, 2015) (making technical 

corrections). 

185Certain amendments to the definition of 

financial institution went into effect on January 1, 

2017. See 12 CFR 1003.2 (effective Jan. 1, 2017); 80 

FR 66128, 66308 (Oct. 28, 2015). 186 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

the Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection (Bureau) to ‘‘prescribe 

standards for any modification under 

paragraph (1)(E) to effectuate the 

purposes of [HMDA], in light of the 

privacy interests of mortgage applicants 

or mortgagors. Where necessary to 

protect the privacy interests of mortgage 

applicants or mortgagors, the Bureau 

shall provide for the disclosure of 

information . . . in aggregate or other 

reasonably modified form, in order to 

effectuate the purposes of [HMDA].’’ 183

On October 28, 2015, the Bureau 

published a final rule amending 

Regulation C (2015 HMDA Final Rule) 

to implement the Dodd-Frank Act 

amendments and make other changes, 

including adding a number of new data 

points.184 Most provisions of the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule took effect on January 

1, 2018,185 and apply to data financial 

institutions collect beginning in 2018 

and report beginning in 2019. 

B. The Balancing Test 

In the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, in 

consultation with the agencies and after 

notice and comment, the Bureau 

interpreted HMDA, as amended by the 

Dodd-Frank Act, to require that the 

Bureau use a balancing test to determine 

whether and how HMDA data should be 

modified prior to its disclosure to the 

public to protect applicant and borrower 

privacy while also fulfilling HMDA’s 

public disclosure purposes. The Bureau 

interpreted HMDA to require that public 

HMDA data be modified when the 

release of the unmodified data creates 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy 

interests that are not justified by the 

benefits of such release to the public in 

light of HMDA’s purposes. In such 

circumstances, the need to protect the 

privacy interests of mortgage applicants 

or mortgagors requires that the itemized 

information be modified. This binding 

interpretation implemented HMDA 

sections 304(h)(1)(E) and 304(h)(3)(B) 

because it prescribed standards for 

requiring modification of itemized 

information, for the purpose of 

protecting the privacy interests of 

mortgage applicants and borrowers, that 

is or will be available to the public.186

The Bureau has applied the balancing 

test to determine whether and how to 

modify the HMDA data reported under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule before it is 

disclosed on the loan level to the public. 

This policy guidance describes the loanlevel HMDA data that the Bureau 

intends to make available to the public 

beginning in 2019, with respect to data 

compiled by financial institutions in or 

after 2018, including modifications that 

the Bureau intends to apply to the data. 

This policy guidance is exempt from 

notice and comment rulemaking 

requirements under the Administrative 

Procedure Act pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 

553(b) and is non-binding. 

C. Loan-Level HMDA Data To Be 

Disclosed to the Public 

The Bureau intends to publicly 

disclose loan-level HMDA data reported 

pursuant to the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

as follows: 

1. Except as provided in paragraphs 2 

through 8 below, the Bureau intends to 

disclose all data as reported, without 

modification. 

2. The Bureau intends to exclude the 

following from the public loan-level 

HMDA data: 

a. Universal loan identifier, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i), or 

non-universal loan identifier, collected 

pursuant to 83 FR 45325, 45330 (Sept. 

7, 2018); 

b. The date the application was 

received or the date shown on the 

application form, collected pursuant to 

12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(ii); 

c. The date of action taken by the 

financial institution on a covered loan 

or application, collected pursuant to 12 

CFR 1003.4(a)(8)(ii); 

d. The address of the property 

securing the loan or, in the case of an 

application, proposed to secure the 

loan, collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(9)(i); 

e. The credit score or scores relied on 

in making the credit decision, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(15)(i); 

f. The unique identifier assigned by 

the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing 

System and Registry for the mortgage 

loan originator, as defined in Regulation 

G, 12 CFR 1007.102, or Regulation H, 12 

CFR 1008.23, as applicable, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(34); 

g. The result generated by the 

automated underwriting system used by 

the financial institution to evaluate the 

application, collected pursuant to 12 

CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(i); and 

h. Free-form text fields used to report 

the following data: Applicant or 

borrower race, collected pursuant to 12 

CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(i); applicant or 

borrower ethnicity, collected pursuant 

to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(i); name and 

version of the credit scoring model used 

to generate each credit score or credit 

scores relied on in making the credit 

decision, collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(15)(i); the principal reason or 

reasons the financial institution denied 

the application, if applicable, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(16); and 

automated underwriting system name, 

collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(35)(i). 

3. With respect to the amount of the 

covered loan or the amount applied for, 

collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(7), the Bureau intends to: 

a. Disclose the midpoint for the 

$10,000 interval into which the reported 

value falls, e.g., for a reported value of 

$117,834, disclose $115,000 as the 

midpoint between values equal to 

$110,000 and less than $120,000; and 

b. Indicate where possible whether 

the reported value exceeds the 

applicable dollar amount limitation on 

the original principal obligation in effect 

at the time of application or origination 

as provided under 12 U.S.C. 1717(b)(2) 

and 12 U.S.C. 1454(a)(2). 

4. With respect to the age of an 

applicant or borrower, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(ii), the 

Bureau intends to: 

a. Bin reported values into the 

following ranges, as applicable: 25 to 34; 

35 to 44; 45 to 54; 55 to 64; and 65 to 

74; 

b. Bottom-code reported values under 

25; 

c. Top-code reported values over 74; 

and 

d. Indicate whether the reported value 

is 62 or higher. 

5. With respect to the ratio of the 

applicant’s or borrower’s total monthly 

debt to the total monthly income relied 

on in making the credit decision, 

collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(23), the Bureau intends to: 

a. Bin reported values into the 

following ranges, as applicable: 20 

percent to less than 30 percent; 30 

percent to less than 36 percent; and 50 

percent to less than 60 percent; 

b. Bottom-code reported values under 

20 percent; 

c. Top-code reported values of 60 

percent or higher; and 

d. Disclose, without modification, 

reported values greater than or equal to 

36 percent and less than 50 percent. 


amozie on DSK3GDR082PROD with NOTICES1
Federal Register / Vol. 84, No. 21 / Thursday, January 31, 2019 / Notices 673 

6. With respect to the value of the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(28), the 

Bureau intends to disclose the midpoint 

for the $10,000 interval into which the 

reported value falls, e.g., for a reported 

value of $117,834, disclose $115,000 as 

the midpoint between values equal to 

$110,000 and less than $120,000. 

7. With respect to the number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property securing the covered loan or, 

in the case of an application, proposed 

to secure the covered loan, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(31), the 

Bureau intends to: 

a. Bin reported values into the 

following ranges, as applicable: 5 to 24; 

25 to 49; 50 to 99; and 100 to 149; 

b. Top-code reported values over 149; 

and 

c. Disclose, without modification, 

reported values below 5. 

8. With respect to the number of 

individual dwelling units related to the 

property that are income-restricted 

pursuant to Federal, State, or local 

affordable housing programs, collected 

pursuant to 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(32), the 

Bureau intends to disclose reported 

values as a percentage, rounded to the 

nearest whole number, of the value 

collected pursuant to 12 CFR 

1003.4(a)(31). 

Dated: December 20, 2018. 

Kathleen Kraninger, 

Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection. 

[FR Doc. 2018–28404 Filed 1–30–19; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4810–AM–P 

CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL AND 

COMMUNITY SERVICE 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission to the Office of 

Management and Budget for Review 

and Approval; Comment Request; 

Employers of National Service 

Enrollment Form and Employers of 

National Service Annual Survey; 

Proposed Information Collection; 

Comment Request 

AGENCY: Corporation for National and 

Community Service. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Corporation for National 

and Community Service (CNCS) has 

submitted a public information 

collection request (ICR) entitled 

Employers of National Service 

Enrollment Form and Annual Survey for 

review and approval in accordance with 

the Paperwork Reduction Act. 

DATES: Comments may be submitted, 

identified by the title of the information 

collection activity, by March 4, 2019. 

ADDRESSES: Comments may be 

submitted, identified by the title of the 

information collection activity, to the 

Office of Information and Regulatory 

Affairs, Attn: Ms. Sharon Mar, OMB 

Desk Officer for the Corporation for 

National and Community Service, by 

any of the following two methods 

within 30 days from the date of 

publication in the Federal Register: 

(1) By fax to: 202–395–6974, 

Attention: Ms. Sharon Mar, OMB Desk 

Officer for the Corporation for National 

and Community Service; or 

(2) By email to: smar@omb.eop.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Copies of this ICR, with applicable 

supporting documentation, may be 

obtained by calling the Corporation for 

National and Community Service, 

Sharron A. Walker-Tendai, at 202–606– 

6930 or by email to Stendai@cns.gov. 

Individuals who use a 

telecommunications device for the deaf 

(TTY–TDD) may call 1–800–833–3722 

between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Eastern 

Time, Monday through Friday. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The OMB 

is particularly interested in comments 

which: 

• Evaluate whether the proposed 

collection of information is necessary 

for the proper performance of the 

functions of CNCS, including whether 

the information will have practical 

utility; 

• Evaluate the accuracy of the 

agency’s estimate of the burden of the 

proposed collection of information, 

including the validity of the 

methodology and assumptions; 

• Propose ways to enhance the 

quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and 

• Propose ways to minimize the 

burden of the collection of information 

on those who are to respond, including 

through the use of appropriate 

automated, electronic, mechanical, or 

other technological collection 

techniques or other forms of information 

technology. 

Comments 

A 60-day Notice requesting public 

comment was published in the Federal 

Register on October 17, 2018 at Vol. 83, 

No. 201, Pg. 52419–52420. This 

comment period ended December 17, 

2018. No public comments were 

received. 

Title of Collection: Employers of 

National Service Enrollment Form and 

Employers of National Service Annual 

Survey. 

OMB Control Number: 3045–0175. 

Type of Review: Renewal and addition 

of second instrument. 

Respondents/Affected Public: Any 

organization that seeks to be or is an 

Employer of National Service program, 

including businesses, nonprofits, 

institutions of higher education, school 

districts, state/local governments, and 

federal agencies. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Responses: 1180. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Burden Hours: 490. 

Abstract: This is a request to renew 

the Employers of National Service 

Enrollment Form and add an additional 

related instrument, the Employers of 

National Service Annual Survey. 

Organizations from all sectors either 

seeking to become or already 

established Employers of National 

Service will be filling out these forms, 

including businesses, nonprofits, 

institutions of higher education, school 

districts, state/local governments, and 

federal agencies. The key purpose of the 

enrollment form is to document what 

the organization is committing to doing 

as an Employer of National Service and 

provide contact information to CNCS. 

The information gathered on the 

enrollment form will also allow CNCS 

to display the organization’s 

information accurately online as a 

resource for job seekers. It will also 

enable CNCS to speak to the diversity 

within the program’s membership, both 

for internal planning and external 

audience use. The purpose of the survey 

form is to track what actions an 

employer has taken in the past year, 

gather stories of success or impact, 

collect quantitative hiring data relating 

to AmeriCorps and Peace Corps alumni, 

and provide organizations with an 

opportunity to update their contact and 

location data. CNCS seeks to renew the 

current information collection. The 

revisions are intended to reflect 

feedback from those outside CNCS. The 

information collection will otherwise be 

used in the same manner as the existing 

application. CNCS also seeks to 

continue using the current application 

until the revised application is 

approved by OMB. The current 

application is due to expire on March 

31, 2019. 

Dated: December 21, 2018. 

Sharron A. Walker-Tendai, 

Program Support Specialist. 

[FR Doc. 2019–00440 Filed 1–30–19; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6050–28–P 


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