44586 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

1Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), 

‘‘Mortgage Debt Outstanding by Type of Property: 

One- to Four-Family Residences (MDOTP1T4FR),’’ 

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

updated June 9, 2017). 

2U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Selected Housing 

Characteristics: 2011–2015 American Community 

Survey 5-Year Characteristics,’’ https://

factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/ 

productview.xhtml?src=bkmk (last visited Aug. 31, 

2017). 

TABLE 1—HOURLY BURDEN

IC No. Item 

Estimated time 

for response 

(hour) 

Estimated 

annual 

responses 

Estimated annual 

burden 

Rate 

($/hr) 

Estimated 

annual 

respondent 

cost burden 

(a) (b) (c) = (a) × (b) (d) (e) = (c) × (d) 

1 ................. PTRC Metric Worksheet 0.50 (30 minutes) 352 176 $31.46 $5,53611.96 

Total .... ........................................ .............................. 352 176 .............................. 5,536.96 

Estimated Total Annual Non-Hour 

Respondent Cost Burden: $0. There are 

no filing fees, capital start-up, 

maintenance, operation, or postage costs 

associated with this collection. 

IV. Request for Comments 

Comments submitted in response to 

this notice will be summarized or 

included in the request for OMB 

approval of this information collection. 

They also will become a matter of 

public record. 

Comments are invited on: 

(a) Whether the proposed collection of 

information is necessary for the proper 

performance of the functions of the 

agency, including whether the 

information shall have practical utility; 

(b) The accuracy of the agency’s 

estimate of the burden (including hours 

and cost) of the proposed collection of 

information; 

(c) Ways to enhance the quality, 

utility, and clarity of the information to 

be collected, and; 

(d) Ways to minimize the burden of 

the collection of information on 

respondents, e.g., the use of automated 

collection techniques or other forms of 

information technology. 

Marcie Lovett, 

Records and Information Governance 

Division Director, OCTO, United States Patent 

and Trademark Office. 

[FR Doc. 2017–20369 Filed 9–22–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–16–P 

BUREAU OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL 

PROTECTION 

[Docket No. CFPB–2017–0025] 

Disclosure of Loan-Level HMDA Data 

AGENCY: Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection. 

ACTION: Notice of proposed policy 

guidance with request for public 

comment. 

SUMMARY: The Bureau of Consumer 

Financial Protection (Bureau) is 

proposing policy guidance that would 

describe modifications that the Bureau 

intends to apply to the loan-level 

HMDA data that financial institutions 

will report under the Home Mortgage 

Disclosure (Regulation C) before the 

data is disclosed to the public. The 

proposed policy guidance applies to 

HMDA data to be reported under 

Regulation C effective January 1, 2018. 

The Bureau will make this data 

available to the public beginning in 

2019. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before November 24, 2017. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, 

identified by Docket No. CFPB–2017– 

0025, by any of the following methods: 

• Email: FederalRegisterComments@

cfpb.gov. Include Docket No. CFPB– 

2017–0025 in the subject line of the 

email. 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// 

www.regulations.gov. Follow the 

instructions for submitting comments. 

• Mail: Monica Jackson, Office of the 

Executive Secretary, Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G 

Street NW., Washington, DC 20552. 

• Hand Delivery/Courier: Monica 

Jackson, Office of the Executive 

Secretary, Consumer Financial 

Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street NW., 

Washington, DC 20552. 

Instructions: All submissions should 

include the agency name and docket 

number or Regulatory Information 

Number (RIN). Because paper mail in 

the Washington, DC area and at the 

Bureau is subject to delay, commenters 

are encouraged to submit comments 

electronically. In general, all comments 

received will be posted without change 

to http://www.regulations.gov. In 

addition, comments will be available for 

public inspection and copying at 1700 

G Street NW., Washington, DC 20552, 

on official business days between the 

hours of 10 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern 

Time. You can make an appointment to 

inspect the documents by telephoning 

202–435–7275. 

All comments, including attachments 

and other supporting materials, will 

become part of the public record and 

subject to public disclosure. Sensitive 

personal information, such as account 

numbers or Social Security numbers, 

should not be included. Comments will 

not be edited to remove any identifying 

or contact information. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

David Jacobs, Counsel, or Laura Stack, 

Senior Counsel, Office of Regulations, at 

202–435–7700 or https://

reginquiries.consumerfinance.gov/. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Summary 

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 

(HMDA) requires certain financial 

institutions to collect, report, and 

disclose data about their mortgage 

lending activity on an ongoing basis to 

both Federal regulators and the general 

public. The home mortgage market is 

the country’s single largest market for 

consumer financial products and 

services, with $10 trillion outstanding.1

It is a critical source of wealth-building 

for both individual families and 

communities, and has a substantial 

impact on the nation’s economy as 

evidenced by its role in triggering in 

2008, the worst financial crisis since the 

Great Depression. As of 2015, 48 million 

consumers had a mortgage, representing 

65 percent of all owner-occupied 

homes.2

HMDA is implemented by Regulation 

C, which describes its purposes as 

helping to determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities; assisting 

public officials in distributing publicsector investment so as to attract private 

investment to areas where it is needed; 

and assisting in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

As described further below, public 

disclosure of HMDA data is central to 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44587 

3 12 U.S.C. 2801(b). 

4Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act, Public Law 101–73, section 1211, 

103 Stat. 183, 524–26 (1989). 

5 54 FR 51356, 51357 (Dec. 15, 1989) (codified at 

12 CFR 1003.1(b)(1)) (Bureau’s post-Dodd-Frank Act 

Regulation C). 

the achievement of the statutory goals 

established by Congress. 

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

Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), which 

amended HMDA to require collection of 

additional mortgage market data and 

transferred HMDA rulemaking authority 

and other functions from the Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System (Board) to the Bureau. On 

October 28, 2015, the Bureau published 

a final rule amending Regulation C 

(2015 HMDA Final Rule) to implement 

the Dodd-Frank Act amendments. 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 its disclosure to the 

public in order 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 the 

statutory purposes. 

This proposed Policy Guidance 

describes the Bureau’s application of the 

balancing test to date and the loan-level 

HMDA data that it proposes 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. In 

developing this guidance, the Bureau 

has consulted with the prudential 

regulators—Board, 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, and the 

Federal Housing Finance Agency. The 

Bureau proposes to publicly disclose the 

loan-level HMDA data reported under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule with the 

following modifications. First, the 

Bureau proposes to modify the public 

loan-level HMDA data to exclude: The 

universal loan identifier; the date the 

application was received or the date 

shown on the application form; the date 

of action taken by the financial 

institution on a covered loan or 

application; the address of the property 

securing the loan or, in the case of an 

application, proposed to secure the 

loan; the credit score or scores relied on 

in making the credit decision; the 

unique identifier assigned by the 

Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 

and Registry for the mortgage loan 

originator; and 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: 

Applicant or borrower race; applicant or 

borrower ethnicity; the name and 

version of the credit scoring model used 

to generate each credit score or credit 

scores relied on in making the credit 

decision; the principal reason or reasons 

the financial institution denied the 

application, if applicable; and the 

automated underwriting system name. 

Second, the Bureau proposes 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 covered loan or the amount 

applied for, the Bureau proposes to 

disclose the midpoint for the $10,000 

interval into which the reported value 

falls. The Bureau also proposes 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 proposes to 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; bottom-code reported 

values under 25; top-code reported 

values over 74; and indicate whether the 

reported value is 62 or higher. 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 

proposes to disclose without 

modification reported values greater 

than or equal to 40 percent and less than 

50 percent; bin reported values into the 

following ranges, as applicable: 20 

percent to less than 30 percent; 30 

percent to less than 40 percent; and 50 

percent to less than 60 percent; bottomcode 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 proposes to 

disclose the midpoint for the $10,000 

interval into which the reported value 

falls. 

This proposed Policy Guidance is 

exempt from notice and comment 

rulemaking requirements under the 

Administrative Procedure Act pursuant 

to 5 U.S.C. 553(b). It is non-binding in 

part to preserve flexibility to revise the 

modifications to be applied to the 

public loan-level HMDA data as 

necessary to maintain a proper 

balancing of the privacy risks and 

benefits of disclosure, especially in the 

event the Bureau becomes aware of new 

facts and circumstances that might 

contribute to privacy risks. However, 

the Bureau invites public comment on 

the proposed Policy Guidance to 

provide transparency, obtain public 

feedback on its application of the 

balancing test, and improve the 

Bureau’s decisionmaking. This proposal 

does not re-open any portion of the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, and the Bureau does 

not intend in this proposal to revisit any 

decisions made in that rulemaking. 

II. Background 

A. HMDA’s Purposes and the Public 

Disclosure of HMDA Data 

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 on an ongoing 

basis to both Federal regulators and the 

general public. 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.3 In 

1989, Congress expanded HMDA to 

require, among other things, financial 

institutions to report racial 

characteristics, gender, and income 

information on applicants and 

borrowers.4 In light of these 

amendments, the Board subsequently 

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.5

Public disclosure of HMDA data is 

central to the achievement of HMDA’s 

goals. Since HMDA’s enactment in 

1975, the data 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 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44588 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

6 12 CFR part 203. 

7Housing and Community Development Act, 

Public Law 96–399, section 340, 94 Stat. 1614 

(1980). 

8 46 FR 11780, 11786 (Feb. 10, 1981). 

9Housing and Community Development Act, 

Public Law 96–399, section 34010, § 340, 94 Stat. 

1614 (1980). 

10 46 FR 11780, 11786 (Feb. 10, 1981). 

11Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and 

Enforcement Act, Public Law 101–73, section 1211, 

103 Stat. 183 (1989). 

12 12 CFR 203.4, 203.5; see also 54 FR 51356, 

51359–60 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

13 54 FR 51356, 51360–61 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

14 55 FR 27886, 27888 (July 6, 1990). In 

announcing that the loan-level data submitted to 

the supervisory agencies on the loan/application 

register would be made available to the public, the 

FFIEC noted that ‘‘[a]n unedited form of the data 

would contain information that could be used to 

identify individual loan applicants’’ and that the 

data would be edited prior to public release to 

remove the application identification number, the 

date of application, and the date of final action. 

15Housing and Community Development Act, 

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

(1992). 

16HMDA section 304(j) identifies as appropriate 

for deletion ‘‘the applicant’s name and 

identification number, the date of the application, 

and the date of any determination by the institution 

with respect to such application.’’ 

17H. Rept. 102–760 (1992). 

18See 12 CFR 1003.5(c) (Bureau’s successor 

Regulation C, which restates the Board’s 

predecessor Regulation C). Section 1003.5(c) 

requires that, before making its loan/application 

register available to the public, a financial 

institution must delete three fields to protect 

applicant and borrower privacy: Application or 

loan number, the date that the application was 

received, and the date action was taken. 

19Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), 12 

U.S.C. 2801 et seq., as implemented by Regulation 

C, 12 CFR part 1003. ‘‘Current Regulation C’’ as 

used herein refers to Regulation C in effect as of the 

date of publication of this proposed Policy 

Guidance. 

20HMDA section 304(j)(2)(B); 12 CFR 1003.5(c). 

21HMDA section 304(k); 12 CFR 1003.5(b). 

22HMDA section 304(f); 12 CFR 1003.5(f). 

23HMDA section 310; 12 CFR 1003.5(f). 

HMDA data have been disclosed to the 

public have evolved to provide more 

useful information to the public and 

public officials. Amendments to the 

statute and Regulation C over time 

illustrate the importance of public 

access to HMDA data to fulfill the 

statute’s purposes. 

As originally promulgated, HMDA 

and Regulation C required a covered 

financial institution to make available to 

the public at its home and branch 

offices a ‘‘disclosure statement’’ 

reflecting aggregates of certain mortgage 

loan data.6 In 1980, Congress amended 

HMDA to increase the public’s access to 

and the utility of the aggregated HMDA 

data. First, Congress amended HMDA 

section 304 to require that the Federal 

Financial Institutions Examination 

Council (FFIEC) implement a system to 

facilitate public access to the data 

required to be disclosed under the 

statute, and provided that such system 

must include arrangements for a 

‘‘central depository of data’’ in each 

standard metropolitan statistical area 

(MSA).7 In amending Regulation C to 

implement this requirement, the Board 

noted that ‘‘the principal benefit of the 

central repository system is that users of 

HMDA data will be able to obtain all of 

the various institutions’ disclosure 

statements at one location. The current 

system requires users to contact the 

institutions on an individual basis to 

obtain the disclosure data.8 Second, the 

1980 HMDA amendments required that 

the FFIEC compile annually for each 

MSA aggregate data by census tract for 

all financial institutions required to 

disclose data under HMDA, and 

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 A principal benefit 

cited to support these requirements was 

that the utility of individual 

institutions’ disclosure statements 

‘‘would be enhanced if they could be 

compared to aggregate [MSA] lending 

patterns.’’ 10

In 1989, as noted above, Congress 

amended HMDA to expand the data 

financial institutions were required to 

disclose to the public.11 In addition to 

requiring that financial institutions 

disclose data concerning the race, sex, 

and income of applicants and 

borrowers, the 1989 amendments 

required that institutions disclose data 

on loan applications in addition to 

originations and purchases. In 

implementing these amendments in 

Regulation C, the Board required 

financial institutions to report HMDA 

data to their supervisory agencies on a 

loan-by-loan and application-byapplication basis using the ‘‘loan/ 

application register’’ format.12

Commenters on the Board’s proposal to 

amend Regulation C to implement the 

1989 amendments urged the Board to 

require that financial institutions make 

their loan/application registers available 

to the public to provide for more 

meaningful analysis of the data than 

that permitted by the required aggregate 

disclosures.13 The Board declined to 

require that financial institutions make 

available to the public their loan/ 

application registers, but in 1990 the 

FFIEC announced 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’’ and 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.14 The FFIEC first disclosed the 

reported loan-level HMDA data to the 

public in October 1991. 

The following year, Congress 

amended HMDA to require 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.15 New section 304(j) 

directed the Board to require such 

deletions from the loan application 

register information made available to 

the public as the Board determined to be 

appropriate to protect any privacy 

interest of any applicant, and identified 

as appropriate for deletion the same 

three fields the FFIEC had determined 

should be deleted from the loan-level 

HMDA data it disclosed to the public.16

A House Report characterizes the 1992 

amendment to HMDA as making 

‘‘changes . . . to ensure that the public 

receives useful and timely information 

regarding the lending records of 

financial institutions.’’ 17 The Board 

implemented this amendment by 

requiring that financial institutions 

make their ‘‘modified’’ loan/application 

registers available to the public after 

deleting the same fields deleted from 

the loan-level HMDA data disclosed by 

the FFIEC.18

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. HMDA and current Regulation 

C 19 continue to require that data be 

made available to the public in both 

aggregate and loan-level formats. Each 

financial institution is required to make 

its modified loan/application register 

available to the public, with three fields 

deleted to protect applicant and 

borrower privacy,20 and also make 

available to the public a disclosure 

statement prepared by the FFIEC that 

shows the financial institution’s HMDA 

data in aggregate form.21 In addition, the 

FFIEC makes available to the public 

disclosure statements for each financial 

institution,22 aggregate reports for each 

MSA and metropolitan division (MD) 

showing lending patterns by certain 

property and applicant characteristics,23

and the loan-level dataset containing all 

reported HMDA data for the preceding 

calendar year, modified to protect 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44589 

24 55 FR 27886 (July 6, 1990) (announcing that the 

loan-level HMDA data submitted on the loan/ 

application register would be made available to the 

public after deletion of three fields to protect 

applicant and borrower privacy). 25 Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 

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

1980, 2035–38, 2097–101 (2010). 26These 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—and the 

Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Together with the Bureau, these agencies are 

referred to herein as ‘‘the agencies.’’ 

27Section 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.’’ 

28 79 FR 51732 (Aug. 29, 2014). 

29Home Mortgage Disclosure (Regulation C), 80 

FR 66128 (Oct. 28, 2015); see also 80 FR 69567 

(Nov. 10, 2015) (making technical corrections). 

30Certain amendments to the definition of 

financial institution went into effect on January 1, 

2017. See 12 CFR 1003.2; 80 FR 66128, 66308 (Oct. 

28, 2015). 

31Beginning in 2018, with respect to data 

compiled in 2017 and later, financial institutions 

will file their HMDA data with the Bureau. The 

Bureau will collect and process HMDA data on 

behalf of the FFIEC and the agencies. 

32 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

33 Id. 

34 Id. at 66133, 66252 (noting that the Bureau’s 

application of the balancing test would include data 

fields currently disclosed on the modified loan/ 

application register and in the agencies’ loan-level 

release). 

applicant and borrower privacy (the 

agencies’ loan-level release).24

B. The Dodd-Frank Act and 

Amendments to HMDA and 

Regulation C 

In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act, which 

amended HMDA and also transferred 

HMDA rulemaking authority and other 

functions from the Board to the Bureau, 

was enacted into law.25 Among other 

changes, the Dodd-Frank Act again 

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 

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),26 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].’’ 27

On August 29, 2014, the Bureau 

published proposed amendments to 

Regulation C (2014 HMDA Proposed 

Rule) to implement the Dodd-Frank Act 

amendments and to make additional 

changes.28 After careful consideration of 

comments received on its proposal, the 

Bureau published a final rule on 

October 28, 2015 (2015 HMDA Final 

Rule) amending Regulation C.29 The 

2015 HMDA Final Rule implements the 

Dodd-Frank Act amendments and 

makes other changes to Regulation C. 

Most provisions of the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule go into effect on January 1, 

2018 30 and apply to data financial 

institutions will collect beginning in 

2018 and will report beginning in 

2019.31

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

addressed the public disclosure of 

HMDA data in two ways. First, the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule made changes to 

financial institutions’ public disclosure 

obligations under Regulation C. Under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, the public 

disclosure of HMDA data is shifted 

entirely to the agencies. Effective with 

respect to HMDA data compiled in 2017 

and later, financial institutions will no 

longer be required to provide their 

modified loan/application registers and 

disclosure statements directly to the 

public and will be required instead to 

provide only a notice advising members 

of the public seeking their data that it 

may be obtained on the Bureau’s Web 

site. In addition to reducing burden on 

financial institutions associated with 

their disclosure of HMDA data, the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule eliminates risks to 

financial institutions associated with 

errors in preparing their modified loan/ 

application registers that could result in 

the unintended disclosure of data. 

Further, the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

allows decisions with respect to what to 

include on the modified loan/ 

application register to be made in 

conjunction with decisions regarding 

the agencies’ loan-level data release, 

providing flexibility and allowing for 

consistency with respect to both 

releases. This shift of responsibility also 

permits 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, shifting the disclosure of 

HMDA data to the agencies will allow 

for easier adjustment of privacy 

protections applied to disclosures of 

loan-level HMDA data as privacy risks 

and potential uses of HMDA data 

evolve. 

Also 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 in order 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 the 

statutory purposes.32 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.33

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule’s 

interpretation of HMDA section 

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

a balancing test is a regulation that 

limits the Bureau’s discretion with 

respect to public release of HMDA data. 

The standards impose 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 in order to 

protect applicant and borrower privacy 

while also fulfilling HMDA’s public 

disclosure purposes. The standards for 

modification of itemized information 

that is or will be available to the public 

apply to all data reported under the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule.34

Part III of this proposed Policy 

Guidance describes the Bureau’s 

application of the balancing test to date 

and its proposals concerning the public 

disclosure of the loan-level HMDA data 

that will be reported to the agencies 

pursuant to Regulation C as amended by 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44590 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

35The Bureau received some comments on the 

2014 HMDA Proposed Rule suggesting that 

disclosure of certain HMDA data fields could reveal 

confidential business information and that such 

data fields should not be disclosed to the public in 

order to protect such information. The Bureau notes 

that HMDA requires modification of the HMDA 

data to protect the privacy interests of applicants 

and borrowers without mentioning the protection of 

confidential business information. Although the 

balancing test adopted in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule addresses risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy created by the disclosure of HMDA data, 

the modifications resulting from its application may 

mitigate some of the confidentiality concerns raised 

by commenters. 

36As discussed above and also below in part IV.C, 

HMDA and Regulation C require the FFIEC to make 

available to the public certain aggregated data. The 

FFIEC, the Bureau, and the other agencies continue 

to evaluate options for disclosure of the required 

aggregates of data that will be reported under the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule. 

37 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

38With respect to data compiled in 2018 or later, 

this proposed Policy Guidance describes the 

modifications the Bureau proposes to apply to the 

agencies’ loan-level release and to each financial 

institution’s modified loan/application register. The 

terms ‘‘loan-level dataset’’ and ‘‘loan-level data’’ 

used herein refer to HMDA data disclosed on the 

loan level, whether the data are those submitted by 

an individual financial institution or by all 

reporting financial institutions. 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule.35 Part IV of 

this proposed Policy Guidance 

addresses other considerations related 

to the disclosure of HMDA data, 

including the disclosure of aggregate 

HMDA data.36

III. Application of the Balancing Test 

A. 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 

the statutory purposes. Considering the 

public disclosure of the loan-level 

HMDA dataset as a whole, risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy interests 

arise under the balancing test only 

where the disclosure of the unmodified 

loan-level HMDA dataset may both 

substantially facilitate the identification 

of an applicant or borrower in the data 

and disclose information about the 

applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive.37 Thus, under the balancing 

test, risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy interests would not arise if a 

loan-level dataset substantially 

facilitated the identification of 

applicants and borrowers in the data but 

revealed no information about 

applicants and borrowers that was 

harmful or sensitive and not otherwise 

public. Alternatively, risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy interests would 

not arise under the balancing test if a 

loan-level dataset contained harmful or 

sensitive information about applicants 

and borrowers that was not otherwise 

public but it was not possible to identify 

an applicant or borrower in the dataset. 

Accordingly, under the balancing test, 

the disclosure of the loan-level HMDA 

dataset creates risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy interests only where at 

least one data field or a combination of 

data fields in the dataset substantially 

facilitates the identification of an 

applicant or borrower, and 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, as discussed below, 

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. Assessing the risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy under 

the balancing test requires an evaluation 

of the unmodified HMDA dataset as a 

whole and of the individual data fields 

contained in the dataset. 

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. 

As discussed further below, with 

respect to the HMDA data that will be 

reported to the agencies under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule and based on its 

analysis to date, the Bureau believes 

that public disclosure of the unmodified 

loan-level dataset, as a whole, would 

create risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy interests under the HMDA 

balancing test. This is due to the 

presence in the dataset of individual 

data fields that the Bureau believes 

would create re-identification risk and 

the presence of individual data fields 

that the Bureau believes are not 

currently public and would create a risk 

of harm or sensitivity. The Bureau thus 

has applied the balancing test to 

determine whether and how it should 

modify the HMDA data that will be 

reported under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule before it is disclosed to the public. 

Based on its analysis, the Bureau 

believes that the balancing test requires 

the loan-level HMDA dataset to be 

modified before it is disclosed to the 

public to reduce risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy created by disclosure 

and appropriately balance them with 

the benefits of disclosure for HMDA’s 

purposes. The Bureau proposes to 

modify the public loan-level dataset as 

described in this proposed Policy 

Guidance.38 The Bureau believes that 

the modifications to the loan-level 

HMDA dataset proposed in this Policy 

Guidance would reduce risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and 

appropriately balance them with the 

benefits of disclosure for HMDA’s 

purposes. The Bureau seeks comment 

on all aspects of this proposed Policy 

Guidance, including its analysis of risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy, its 

application of the balancing test, and its 

proposed modifications. 

This part III.A describes the benefits 

of public disclosure of the data that will 

be reported under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule, the risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy that may be created by 

the public disclosure of the unmodified 

HMDA data that the Bureau has 

considered, and the Bureau’s approach 

to balancing these benefits and risks. 

Part III.B describes the application of 

the balancing test to the data that will 

be reported under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule and the Bureau’s proposed 

modifications to the loan-level HMDA 

data that will be disclosed to the public. 

Disclosure Benefits 

Under the balancing test, the Bureau 

considers the benefits of disclosure of 

the loan-level HMDA data to the public. 

As described above, HMDA has a long 

history of providing the public with 

information about mortgage lending 

activity, and Congress has repeatedly 

amended the statute to increase the 

scope and utility of the data disclosed 

to the public. Users of HMDA data have 

relied on this information to help 

achieve HMDA’s purposes: Helping to 

determine whether financial institutions 

are serving the housing needs of their 

communities; assisting public officials 

in distributing public-sector investment 

so as to attract private investment to 

areas where it is needed; and assisting 

in identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. Today, 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44591 

39For more information about the history and 

benefits of HMDA, see the supplementary 

information to the Bureau’s 2014 HMDA Proposed 

Rule, 79 FR 51732, 51735–36 (Aug. 29, 2014), and 

the Bureau’s 2015 HMDA Final Rule, 80 FR 66128, 

66129–31 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

40See John Goering and Ron Wienk, ‘‘Mortgage 

Lending, Racial Discrimination and Federal 

Policy,’’ at 10 (Urban Inst. Press 1996). 

41Robert B. Avery & Thomas M. Buynak, 

‘‘Economic Review—Mortgage Redlining: Some 

New Evidence,’’ at 18–32 (Fed. Reserve Bank of 

Cleveland, Working Paper No. 0013–0281, 1981), 

available at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/ 

?item_id=4183&filepath=/files/docs/publications/ 

frbclevreview/rev_frbclev_198102.pdf; Carolina Reid 

and Elizabeth Laderman, ‘‘The Untold Costs of 

Subprime Lending: Examining the Links Among 

Higher-Priced Lending, Foreclosures and Race in 

California’’ (Fed. Reserve Bank of S.F., Working 

Paper No. 2009–09, 2009), available at https://

iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/reid-carolina/ 

The%20Untold%20Costs%20of%20Subprime

%20Lending%203.pdf. 

42 ‘‘Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: Newly 

Collected Data and What It Means,’’ Hearing on the 

2004 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act before the 

Subcomm. on Fin. Servs. and Consumer Credit of 

the H. Comm. on Fin. Servs., 109th Cong. 4 (2006) 

(written testimony of Calvin Bradford, President, 

Calvin Bradford Assocs., Ltd., on behalf of the Nat’l 

Fair Hous. Alliance). 

43See City of Albuquerque, Dep’t of Family and 

Comty. Hous., ‘‘Five Year Consolidated Housing 

Plan and Workforce Housing Plan (2008–2012),’’ at 

100 (2008), available at http://www.cabq.gov/ 

family/documents/ConsolidatedWorkforceHousing

Plan20082012final.pdf; City of Antioch, Cal., 

‘‘Fiscal Year 2012–2013: Consolidated Annual 

Performance Evaluation Report,’’ at 29 (2012), 

available at http://ci.antioch.ca.us/CitySvcs/ 

CDBGdocs/CAPER%20FY%2012-13.pdf; City of 

Lawrence, Mass., ‘‘HUD Consolidated Plan 2010– 

2015,’’ at 68 (2010), available at http://

www.cityoflawrence.com/Data/Sites/1/documents/ 

cd/Lawrence_Consolidated_Plan_Final.pdf. 

44See U.S. Dep’t of Housing and Urban Dev., 

‘‘Neighborhood Stabilization Program Formula 

Methodology’’ (2008), available at https://

www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/NSP.html. 45Bill Dedman, ‘‘The Color of Money,’’ (parts 1– 

4), Atlanta Journal-Const., May 1–4, 1988; David 

Everett et al., ‘‘The Race for Money,’’ (parts 1–4), 

Detroit Free Press, July 24–27, 1988; Bill Dedman, 

‘‘Blacks Turned Down for Home Loans from S&Ls 

Twice as Often as Whites,’’ Atlanta Journal-Const., 

Jan. 22, 1989; Katharine Bradbury et al., 

‘‘Geographic Patterns of Mortgage Lending in 

Boston, 1982–1987,’’ New Eng. Econ. Rev., (1989). 

These reports and studies helped motivate Congress 

to amend HMDA to improve publicly available 

information about lending practices through the 

Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act of 1989. 

46Federal Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act, Public Law 101–73, section 1211, 

§ 304, 103 Stat. 183, 524–26 (1989). 47For example, researchers have found evidence 

that, in many cases, an applicant’s race alone 

influenced whether the applicant was denied 

credit. See, e.g., Alicia H. Munnell et al., ‘‘Mortgage 

Lending in Boston: Interpreting the HMDA Data,’’ 

at 22 (Am. Econ. Rev., Fed. Reserve Bank of Boston 

Working Paper 92–7 (1992); James H. Carr & Isaac 

F. Megbolugbe, ‘‘The Federal Reserve Bank of 

Boston: Study on Mortgage Lending Revisited,’’ 4 J. 

of Hous. Res. 2, at 277 (1993). 

48See Adam Rust, ‘‘A Principle-Based Redesign 

of HMDA and CRA Data in Revisiting the 

Community Reinvestment Act: Perspectives on the 

Future of the Community Reinvestment Act,’’ at 179 

(Fed. Reserve Banks of Bos. and S.F. 2009). 

49 Yana Kunichoff, ‘‘Lisa Madigan credits 

Reporter with initiating largest discriminatory 

lending settlements in U.S. history,’’ Chicago Rep. 

(June 14, 2013), available at http://

www.chicagonow.com/chicago-muckrakers/2013/ 

06/lisa-madigan-credits-reporter-with-initiatinglargest-discriminatory-lending-settlements-in-u-shistory/; Press Release, N.Y. State Off. of the Att’y 

Gen., ‘‘Attorney General Cuomo Obtains 

Approximately $1 Million For Victims Of 

Greenpoint’s Discriminatory Lending Practices’’ 

(July 16, 2008), available at http://www.ag.ny.gov/ 

press-release/attorney-general-cuomo-obtainsapproximately-1-million-victims-greenpoints. 

50Although certain regulators have access to the 

non-public HMDA data, their analyses also rely 

heavily on data fields that are publicly disclosed. 

HMDA data are the preeminent data 

source that regulators, researchers, 

economists, industry, and advocates 

rely on to achieve HMDA’s purposes 

and to analyze the mortgage market.39

Community groups, researchers, and 

public officials have used HMDA data to 

help determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities. For 

example, HMDA data have enabled 

community groups to understand the 

magnitude of disinvestment within 

minority neighborhoods.40 Public 

officials have relied on HMDA data to 

compare the lending activity of financial 

institutions to the credit needs of 

communities and to examine whether 

minority communities were 

disproportionately affected by 

foreclosures following the financial 

crisis.41 Further, community groups 

relied on HMDA data to document the 

rise in subprime lending among 

minority communities in the years 

before the financial crisis.42

Public officials also have used HMDA 

data to develop and allocate housing 

and community development 

investments. For example, local 

governments have used HMDA data to 

characterize neighborhoods for purposes 

of determining the most effective use of 

housing grants, to select financial 

institutions for contracts and 

participation in local programs, and to 

identify a need for homebuyer 

counseling and education.43 Similarly, 

the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development used HMDA data to 

develop the formula by which funding 

would be provided to communities 

suffering from foreclosures and 

abandonment under the Neighborhood 

Stabilization Program.44

HMDA data have also been used by 

public officials, researchers, and 

community groups to identify 

potentially discriminatory lending 

patterns and to enforce 

antidiscrimination statutes. For 

example, researchers, journalists, and 

public officials relied on HMDA data 

along with other publicly available data 

to identify racial disparities in mortgage 

lending between neighborhoods in 

Atlanta, Detroit, and Boston.45 Since 

Congress amended HMDA to require 

reporting of the race, gender, and 

income of individual applicants and 

borrowers,46 the expanded HMDA data 

have been used to identify potential 

discriminatory lending practices.47

Community groups have used the data 

to monitor fair lending within their 

communities and enter into agreements 

with financial institutions to ensure that 

the local needs were being served in a 

responsible manner.48 HMDA data also 

played an important role in recent 

enforcement actions by the Illinois and 

New York Attorneys General related to 

discriminatory mortgage lending.49 The 

Bureau and other regulators regularly 

rely on HMDA data in fair lending 

analyses, including in identifying 

possible discriminatory practices such 

as illegal redlining.50

In enacting the Dodd-Frank Act in 

2010, Congress expanded the data 

financial institutions are required to 

collect, report, and disclose under 

HMDA and authorized the Bureau to 

require additional information. The 

Bureau’s 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

amended Regulation C to implement the 

Dodd-Frank Act amendments and 

address the informational shortcomings 

exposed by the financial crisis to better 

meet the needs of the public, public 

officials, and regulators. Although the 

2015 HMDA Final Rule did not address 

the specific data fields that would be 

disclosed to the public in the loan-level 

HMDA data, the rule required the 

collection and reporting of a number of 

data fields which, if publicly disclosed, 

would improve the ability of HMDA 

data users to fulfill HMDA’s purposes. 

For example, mandatory reporting of 

information about the reasons for denial 

of a loan application, combined with 

data fields used to make underwriting 

decisions, would improve the ability to 

understand lenders’ decision-making 

and to identify possible discriminatory 

lending patterns in underwriting. 

Pricing information, such as rate spread 

for additional types of loans, total loan 

costs, total discount points, lender 

credits, and interest rate, would allow 

users to better understand pricing 

decisions and the cost of credit to 

mortgage borrowers. Information about 

manufactured housing and multifamily 

financing would allow users to better 

understand important sources of 

housing for low-income and potentially 

financially vulnerable borrowers, which 

helps users determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities and helps 

public officials target public investment 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44592 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

51See, e.g., Nat’l Inst. of Standards & Tech., ‘‘DeIdentification 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). 

52 If the corresponding record lacks the name of 

the applicant or borrower, an adversary may be able 

to use data fields from the corresponding record to 

match to a record in another identified dataset. 

53For example, if the corresponding record is not 

the only record in the other dataset that shares 

certain data fields with the unique HMDA record, 

to better attract private investment. 

Information about the ages of applicants 

or borrowers and disaggregated racial 

and ethnic information would assist in 

identifying potentially discriminatory 

lending patterns and help determine 

whether financial institutions are 

serving the housing needs of their 

communities. Data fields about 

occupancy status and home-equity lines 

of credit provide information about 

potentially speculative purchases of 

housing and the degrees of leverage 

borrowers are undertaking. This 

information would better allow users to 

identify trends in the mortgage market 

that may increase systemic risk to the 

overall economy. Understanding these 

risks helps public officials distribute 

public-sector investment and helps 

users determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities. 

Today, HMDA data represent a public 

good that responds to the fact that 

private lenders do not, in the ordinary 

course, make information about their 

loans and lending decisions publicly 

available. HMDA provides the only 

source of loan-level mortgage data with 

comprehensive national coverage that is 

free and easily accessible to the public. 

Other publicly available mortgage 

datasets lack information crucial for 

HMDA’s purposes that is found in the 

HMDA data, such as the race, ethnicity, 

and sex of applicants and borrowers. 

Private data vendors sell several large 

datasets that typically contain data 

collected from the largest mortgage loan 

servicers or securitizers, but none of 

these datasets match the coverage of the 

HMDA data. These private datasets also 

typically lack information that identifies 

individual lenders and therefore cannot 

be used to study whether specific 

lenders are meeting community needs 

or may be making discriminatory credit 

decisions. Additionally, the Bureau is 

aware of no private dataset that includes 

information about applications that do 

not result in originated loans. By 

including applications in addition to 

originated and purchased loans, HMDA 

provides a near-census of the mortgage 

market that allows users to draw a 

detailed picture of the supply and 

demand of mortgage credit at various 

levels of geographic and lender 

aggregation. Finally, unlike the HMDA 

data, private datasets are costly for 

subscribers, creating a substantial 

hurdle for many community groups, 

government agencies, and researchers 

that wish to access them. 

HMDA data also benefit users by 

addressing the information asymmetries 

present in credit markets. The degree of 

control that lenders exercise over the 

mortgage lending process gives them a 

significant information advantage over 

borrowers, researchers, and other 

members of the public. This advantage 

can contribute to certain types of lender 

behavior, such as discrimination or 

predatory lending, that conflict with the 

best interests of borrowers and the 

housing needs of communities. The 

relative difference in information may 

also lead to herding behavior where 

both lenders and consumers pursue 

risky mortgage loans based primarily on 

the popularity of these products, 

creating substantial systemic risk to the 

mortgage market and the financial 

system. Publicly available mortgage data 

increase transparency in the mortgage 

market, narrowing the information gap 

between lenders and borrowers, 

community groups, and public officials. 

Greater information can enable these 

latter parties to advocate for financial 

institutions to maintain fair practices 

and serve the housing needs of their 

communities, and can increase the 

prospect of self-correction by financial 

institutions. Additional information also 

helps to reduce the herding behavior of 

both lenders and borrowers, reducing 

systemic risk. 

Risks to Applicant and Borrower 

Privacy Interests 

The Bureau has considered the risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy that 

may be created by the public disclosure 

of the HMDA data that will be reported 

to the agencies under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule. Based on its analysis to date, 

the Bureau believes that public 

disclosure of the unmodified loan-level 

dataset, as a whole, would create risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy 

interests under the HMDA balancing 

test. As described in more detail below, 

this is due to the presence in the dataset 

of individual data fields that the Bureau 

believes would create re-identification 

risk and the presence of individual data 

fields that the Bureau believes would 

create a risk of harm or sensitivity. 

However, the Bureau believes that the 

modifications to the loan-level HMDA 

dataset proposed in this Policy 

Guidance would reduce these risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and 

appropriately balance them with the 

benefits of disclosure for HMDA’s 

purposes. 

Re-Identification Risk 

In evaluating the potential reidentification risk presented by the 

disclosure of the unmodified loan-level 

HMDA data that will be reported under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, the Bureau 

has considered the data fields contained 

in the dataset, the likely methods by 

which applicants and borrowers could 

be identified in the dataset, the nature 

and availability of additional datasets 

that may be useful to the reidentification of HMDA data, and the 

incentives and capabilities of persons 

interested in re-identification. The 

Bureau uses the term ‘‘adversary’’ when 

referring to such persons.51 The term is 

not intended to indicate that the 

adversary’s motives are necessarily 

malicious or adverse to the interests of 

the individuals in the dataset. 

In the HMDA context, the Bureau is 

concerned about two re-identification 

scenarios. First, an adversary may use 

common data fields to match a HMDA 

record to a record in another dataset that 

contains the identity of the applicant or 

borrower. Second, an individual may 

rely on pre-existing personal knowledge 

to recognize an applicant or borrower’s 

record in the unmodified HMDA data. 

Under the first scenario, it may be 

possible to match a HMDA record to a 

record from an identified dataset 

directly, or data fields from additional 

datasets may need to be matched to the 

HMDA record to complete the match to 

the identified record. However, 

successfully re-identifying a HMDA 

record would require several steps and 

may present a significant challenge. 

First, an adversary generally would have 

to isolate a record that is unique within 

the HMDA data. A HMDA record is 

unique when the values of the data 

fields associated with it are shared by 

no other HMDA record. But a HMDA 

record’s uniqueness alone would not 

automatically result in its reidentification; an adversary would have 

to find a record corresponding to the 

applicant or borrower in another dataset 

that shares data fields with the unique 

HMDA record that permit the records to 

be matched. Once a unique HMDA 

record has been matched to a 

corresponding record, an adversary 

would possess any additional fields 

found in the corresponding record but 

not found in the HMDA record, such as 

the identity of the applicant or 

borrower.52 However, even after 

accomplishing such a match, an 

adversary might not have accurately reidentified the true applicant or borrower 

to whom the HMDA record relates.53


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44593 

an adversary would have to make a probabilistic 

determination as to which corresponding record 

belongs to the applicant or borrower. Also, 

depending on the coverage of the other dataset, a 

corresponding record may be unique in the other 

dataset but not unique in the general population. 

54 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. Reserve Bulletin 

(Summer 2005), available at http://

www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2005/3- 

05hmda.pdf. 

55None of the public or private datasets discussed 

herein include 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. 

Therefore, the Bureau believes that the risk of reidentification to applicants is significantly lower 

than the risk to borrowers. However, some of the 

information contained in the unmodified HMDA 

data for applicants may permit an adversary to reidentify an applicant despite the lack of publicly 

available real estate records reflecting the 

transaction. For example, if an applicant withdraws 

an application and obtains a loan secured by the 

same property from another institution, it may be 

possible to link the HMDA data for the withdrawn 

application with the data for the origination, as 

much of the property and borrower information will 

be identical. 

56SE.C., ‘‘Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, 

and Retrieval (EDGAR),’’ https://www.sec.gov/ 

edgar.shtml (last visited January 26, 2017); Fannie 

Mae, ‘‘Fannie Mae Single-Family Loan Performance 

Dataset,’’ http://www.fanniemae.com/portal/ 

funding-the-market/data/loan-performancedata.html (last visited Jan. 26, 2017); Freddie Mac, 

‘‘Single Family Loan-Level Dataset,’’http://

www.freddiemac.com/news/finance/sf_loanlevel_

dataset.html (last visited Jan. 26, 2017); Ginnie Mae, 

‘‘Data Dictionaries,’’ http://www.ginniemae.gov/ 

investors/disclosures_and_reports/Pages/ 

Disclosure-Data-Dictionaries.aspx (last visited Jan. 

26, 2017). 

57See, e.g., Freddie Mac, ‘‘Terms for SingleFamily Loan-Level Dataset Registration and Login 

Pages,’’ https://freddiemac.embs.com/FLoan/ 

HistoricalDataTerms.html (last visited Mar. 20, 

2017). 

58See generally Fed. Trade Comm’n, ‘‘Data 

Brokers: A Call for Transparency and 

Accountability,’’ (May 2014), available at https://

www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/databrokers-call-transparency-accountability-reportfederal-trade-commission-may-2014/ 

140527databrokerreport.pdf (describing the types of 

products offered and the data sources used by data 

brokers). 

59For example, a marketer currently may obtain 

from a consumer reporting agency a ‘‘prescreened’’ 

list of consumers meeting certain criteria, such as 

a minimum credit score, only for the purpose of 

making a ‘‘firm offer of credit or insurance.’’ 15 

U.S.C. 1681b(c), 1681a(l). 

60For example, private datasets may only contain 

an estimate of the household income, while the 

HMDA data contains the gross annual income relied 

on by the financial institution, which may be more 

accurate. 

The HMDA data that will be reported 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, like 

the data reported under current 

Regulation C, contain data fields that 

create re-identification risk. First, the 

HMDA data display a high level of 

record uniqueness.54 As explained 

above, record uniqueness alone does not 

mean that a record can be re-identified, 

but a unique HMDA record could be 

matched to a corresponding record in 

another dataset that is available to an 

adversary. In the HMDA context, the 

Bureau believes that particularly 

relevant sources of identified data for 

matching purposes are publicly 

available real estate transaction records 

and property tax records. Although 

there is variance by jurisdiction, such 

records are often available electronically 

and typically identify a borrower 

through documents such as the 

mortgage or deed of trust. These 

documents typically include the loan 

amount, the financial institution, the 

unique identifier assigned to the 

mortgage originator, the borrower’s 

name, and the property address, and 

may include other information. Because 

some of these data fields are also 

present in the HMDA data, the Bureau 

believes that the release of loan-level 

HMDA data without any modifications 

would create a risk that these public 

records could be directly matched to a 

HMDA record to re-identify an 

applicant 55 or borrower. 

Other publicly available sources of 

data similar to those included in the 

HMDA data that will be reported under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule include 

loan-level performance datasets made 

available by the Government-Sponsored 

Enterprises (GSEs) and mortgage-backed 

securities datasets made available by the 

Securities and Exchange Commission 

through the Electronic Data Gathering, 

Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) 

system.56 The loan-level performance 

datasets include data fields similar to 

those that will be included in the 

unmodified HMDA data, such as credit 

score, loan amount, interest rate, debtto-income ratio, combined loan-to-value 

ratio, and loan-to-value ratio. The 

mortgage-backed securities dataset 

includes similar information, such as 

the credit score, loan amount, lien 

status, property value, and debt-toincome ratio. These datasets are 

available online with limited 

restrictions on access. But these datasets 

do not include the name of the 

borrower; as described above, this 

means that an adversary who is able to 

match a record in one of these datasets 

to a record in HMDA would need to 

make an additional match to an 

identified dataset to re-identify a 

borrower. And some of these datasets 

contain restrictions on use, such as a 

prohibition on attempting to re-identify 

individual borrowers.57

Private datasets that could be matched 

to the HMDA data are also available. For 

example, data brokers collect 

information about consumers from a 

wide range of sources and sell it for a 

variety of purposes, including 

marketing, identity verification, and 

fraud detection.58 These datasets 

typically include data collected from 

commercial, government, and other 

publicly available sources and may 

contain data about mortgage loan 

borrowers, including age, income, loanto-value ratio, property value, loan 

amount, address, race, ethnicity, and 

origination date. Other datasets specific 

to mortgage loans are provided for 

purposes of evaluating mortgage-backed 

securities, identifying marketing 

opportunities, or analyzing market 

trends. These datasets may include loan 

amount, interest rate, credit score, 

negative amortization features, and 

closing date. Some of these datasets 

include the names of consumers, 

although others contain de-identified 

loan-level mortgage data. However, 

these datasets may contain contractual 

restrictions on use and re-disclosure, 

including prohibiting their use for reidentification purposes, and may be 

cost-prohibitive for many potential 

adversaries. 

In addition to considering the steps an 

adversary would need to complete to reidentify the HMDA data and the various 

data sources that may be required to 

accomplish re-identification, including 

their limitations, the Bureau also has 

considered the capacity, incentives, and 

characteristics of potential adversaries, 

including those that may attempt reidentification for harmful purposes. The 

Bureau believes that some potential 

adversaries may be interested in reidentifying the HMDA data for 

marketing or other commercial 

purposes. For example, the unmodified 

HMDA data contain information about 

applicants and borrowers, and features 

of the loans they obtained or applied 

for, that the Bureau believes would have 

commercial appeal for marketing and 

advertising. Although extensive data 

about identified consumers is already 

available to marketers, the Bureau 

believes that at least some of the HMDA 

data that may be useful to marketers are 

typically not publicly available from 

any source for marketing purposes, are 

available in limited circumstances,59 or 

may be less reliable or precise than the 

HMDA data may be perceived to be.60

These potential adversaries could 

possess the resources to use private 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44594 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

61For example, although the Bureau is aware of 

no dataset with detailed information on mortgage 

loan applicants, an adversary with personal 

knowledge of an applicant could identify an 

applicant in the HMDA data. 

datasets in addition to publicly 

available records to re-identify the 

HMDA data. However, the Bureau has 

considered the extent to which much of 

the commercial benefit to be obtained 

by re-identifying the HMDA data may be 

more readily available from private 

datasets to which these potential 

adversaries already have access without 

the need for recourse to the HMDA data. 

In many cases, information from other 

datasets may be timelier than that found 

in the HMDA data, where the delay 

between action taken on a loan and 

disclosure of the loan-level HMDA data 

ranges from 3 to 15 months. Further, 

some of these potential adversaries may 

refrain from re-identifying the HMDA 

data for reputational reasons or because 

they have agreed to restrictions on using 

data from the additional datasets 

described above for re-identification 

purposes. 

Additionally, although most 

academics, researchers, and journalists 

use HMDA data only for HMDA 

purposes or market monitoring, some 

may be interested in re-identifying the 

HMDA data for purposes of research. 

These persons may differ in their 

capacity to re-identify an applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data. The 

Bureau believes that those who lack 

resources are likely to attempt to match 

a HMDA record to publicly available 

datasets such as real estate transaction 

records, while those with relatively 

greater resources may also rely on 

private datasets. However, as mentioned 

above, some private datasets may have 

contractual terms prohibiting their use 

for re-identification purposes. Further, 

those academics or journalists with 

significant resources may be affiliated 

with organizations that have 

reputational or institutional interests 

that would not be served by reidentifying the HMDA data. These 

factors may reduce the risk of reidentification by such persons. 

The Bureau has considered whether 

parties intending to commit identity 

theft or financial fraud may have the 

incentive and capacity to re-identify the 

HMDA data. As discussed further 

below, the Bureau believes that the 

HMDA data would be of minimal use 

for these purposes. For example, the 

HMDA data will 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 will they 

include information useful to perpetrate 

existing account fraud, such as account 

numbers or passwords. Further, these 

potential adversaries are not law abiding 

and may have easier, albeit illegal, ways 

to secure data for these purposes than 

attempting to re-identify loan-level 

HMDA data. The resources of these 

potential adversaries likely vary, so 

some may be able to use private datasets 

in addition to publicly available records 

to re-identify the HMDA data were they 

to attempt to do so. 

In addition to the possibility of reidentifying borrowers through matching 

HMDA data to other datasets, some 

potential adversaries may be able to reidentify a particular applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data by relying 

on personal knowledge about the 

applicant or borrower. As noted above, 

the Bureau believes that the HMDA data 

display a high level of record 

uniqueness, and the unmodified HMDA 

data include location and demographic 

information, such as race, sex, ethnicity, 

and age, that may be known to a 

potential adversary who is familiar with 

a specific applicant or borrower. 

Therefore, such a potential adversary 

may be able to re-identify a known 

applicant or borrower even if 

traditionally identifying information is 

not disclosed and without attempting to 

match a HMDA record to an identified 

record. This potential adversary could 

include a neighbor or acquaintance of 

the applicant or borrower, and the 

interest in re-identification may range 

from mere curiosity to the desire to 

embarrass or otherwise harm the 

applicant or borrower. Although these 

potential adversaries may lack the 

sophistication or resources required to 

re-identify a HMDA record by matching 

it to other datasets, they may possess a 

high level of specific knowledge about 

the characteristics of a particular 

applicant or borrower. 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 impact a limited 

number of individuals. 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 predict the exact content 

of any pre-existing personal knowledge 

that such a potential adversary may 

possess. 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.61

Risk of Harm or Sensitivity 

The Bureau has considered whether, 

if a loan-level record in the HMDA 

dataset were re-identified, HMDA data 

that will be reported under the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule would disclose 

information about the applicant or 

borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive. To the 

extent a HMDA record could be 

associated with an identified applicant 

or borrower and could also be 

successfully matched to another deidentified dataset to re-identify such a 

dataset, harmful or sensitive 

information in that dataset that is not 

otherwise public may also be disclosed. 

The Bureau has considered whether the 

HMDA data could be used for harmful 

purposes such as perpetrating fraud or 

identity theft against an applicant or 

borrower or for targeted marketing of 

products and services that may pose 

risks that are not apparent. The Bureau 

has also considered whether certain 

HMDA data fields may be viewed as 

sensitive if associated with a particular 

applicant or borrower, even where the 

disclosure of the data field is unlikely 

to lead to financial or other tangible 

harms. In evaluating the potential 

sensitivity of a data field, the Bureau 

has also considered whether disclosure 

of the data field could cause dignity or 

reputational harm or embarrassment, or 

could be considered outside of societal 

or cultural expectations with respect to 

what information is available to the 

general public. 

As noted above, today, significant 

amounts of identifiable data concerning 

consumers is available to the general 

public, including in public records. 

Identifiable consumer information is 

also available from commercial data 

sources with varying barriers to access 

and restrictions on use. In evaluating 

the risk of harm or sensitivity created by 

the public disclosure of loan-level 

HMDA data, the Bureau’s analysis has 

considered the degree to which such 

disclosure would increase these risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy 

compared to the risks that already exist, 

absent the public availability of the data 

in HMDA. Accordingly, the Bureau has 

considered whether the data that will be 

reported under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule are typically publicly available in 

an identifiable form and, if so, any 

barriers to accessing the information or 

restrictions on its use. Depending on the 

nature and extent of the public 

availability of a particular data field, the 

Bureau generally considers public 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44595 

62As noted above, however, to the extent a 

HMDA record could be associated with an 

identified applicant or borrower and could also 

successfully be matched to a de-identified dataset 

to re-identify such a dataset, harmful or sensitive 

information in that dataset that is not otherwise 

public may also be disclosed. 

63Phishing is an attempt by a perpetrator to 

obtain sensitive information, such as account 

numbers or passwords, by masquerading as a 

legitimate company. Phishing is typically 

conducted by fraudulent email messages appearing 

to come from a legitimate company that direct the 

recipient to a spoofed Web site or otherwise get the 

recipient to divulge private information. The 

perpetrators then use this private information to 

commit identity theft. 

64 Knowledge-based authentication (KBA) is a 

method of authentication which seeks to prove the 

identity of someone accessing a service, such as an 

account at a financial institution. KBA requires the 

knowledge of information about a particular 

individual to prove that a person attempting to 

access a service is the individual. ‘‘Static’’ KBA, 

also known as ‘‘shared secrets,’’ relies on 

information initially shared by the individual to the 

provider of the service, such as an answer to a 

question, which is later retrieved when an 

individual seeks to access the service. ‘‘Dynamic’’ 

KBA uses knowledge questions to verify identity 

but does not require the individual to have 

provided the questions and answers beforehand. 

Dynamic KBA questions are compiled from data 

known to or obtained by the institution, such as 

transaction history or data from credit reports. 

availability to reduce any risk of harm 

or sensitivity that may be created by the 

public disclosure of the data field in the 

loan-level HMDA data. For example, 

although some borrowers may consider 

the amount of their mortgage to be 

sensitive, the Bureau believes that this 

information is often publicly available 

and considers such availability to 

reduce the risk of harm or sensitivity 

that may be created by the disclosure of 

this unmodified data field in the HMDA 

data. In other words, if potentially 

harmful or sensitive information about 

an applicant or borrower is already 

available to the general public, 

disclosure of that information in the 

loan-level HMDA data creates less risk 

of additional harm or sensitivity than if 

the data were otherwise not publicly 

available about the applicant or 

borrower. 

In evaluating the risk of harm or 

sensitivity created by the disclosure of 

the loan-level HMDA data, the Bureau 

also has considered the likelihood that 

the loan-level HMDA data would be reidentified and used for harmful 

purposes or to embarrass or damage the 

reputation of an applicant or borrower. 

As discussed above, the Bureau 

generally believes that successful reidentification of loan-level HMDA data 

would require several steps and may 

represent a significant challenge. Even 

where an adversary is able to match a 

HMDA record to a record in an 

identified dataset, the adversary still 

may not have accurately identified the 

true applicant or borrower to whom the 

HMDA record relates. To the extent that 

the risk that re-identification would be 

accomplished is low, the risk of 

disclosing harmful or sensitive 

information is reduced. 

The Bureau believes that the 

unmodified loan-level HMDA data that 

will be reported under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule would be of minimal use for 

purposes of perpetrating identity theft 

or financial fraud against applicants and 

borrowers. As noted above, the HMDA 

data will 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.62 Although almost any 

information relating to an individual 

could at least theoretically be used by 

an adversary seeking to steal the 

identity of or commit fraud against the 

individual, the Bureau does not believe 

that disclosure of the HMDA data would 

be likely to increase information 

available for these purposes. For 

example, the HMDA data will include 

the name of the financial institution and 

other details about the loan terms that 

could be used in a phishing attack 

against an applicant or borrower by a 

perpetrator pretending to be the 

financial institution,63 but data that 

could be used for this purpose are often 

already available in publicly available 

real estate transaction records. The 

Bureau has also considered whether the 

HMDA data could be used for 

knowledge-based authentication 

purposes,64 but believes the data are 

unlikely to increase information 

available that is typically used for such 

purposes. 

The Bureau believes that some of the 

unmodified loan-level HMDA data 

would provide information that is not 

already public and could be used to 

target applicants and borrowers for 

marketing, including marketing for 

products and services that may pose 

risks that are not apparent. As noted 

above, the unmodified HMDA data 

would provide information about an 

applicant’s or borrower’s financial 

condition and, with respect to a 

borrower, details about the loan 

obtained. The Bureau believes that, at 

least for a period of time after the loanlevel HMDA data are disclosed, this 

information may be useful to those 

looking to offer financial products and 

services or otherwise improve market 

segmentation. Although these data 

could be used to market products and 

services that would be beneficial for 

applicants and borrowers, perhaps 

increasing competition among lenders 

that could help consumers receive the 

best loan terms possible, they could also 

be used to target potentially vulnerable 

consumers with marketing for products 

and services that may pose risks that are 

not apparent. For example, certain 

information about a loan might be 

perceived to reveal information about a 

borrower’s sophistication as a consumer 

of financial products and services, and 

information about a borrower’s financial 

condition may suggest vulnerability to 

scams relating to debt relief or credit 

repair. 

Finally, the Bureau believes that some 

of the unmodified loan-level HMDA 

data that will be reported to the agencies 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

would be considered sensitive by most 

consumers. In assessing whether a data 

field creates a risk of sensitivity, the 

Bureau has considered if its disclosure 

could lead to dignity or reputational 

harm or embarrassment, or could be 

considered outside of societal or 

cultural expectations with respect to 

what information is available to the 

general public. 

Balancing Risks and Benefits 

In applying the balancing test, the 

Bureau has considered the risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy interests 

that would be created by the public 

disclosure of the unmodified loan-level 

HMDA data that will be reported under 

the 2015 HMDA Final Rule and the 

benefits of such disclosure in light of 

HMDA’s purposes. As discussed above, 

assessing risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy under the balancing 

test requires an evaluation of the 

unmodified HMDA dataset as a whole 

and of the individual data fields 

contained in the dataset. In developing 

this proposal, the Bureau reviewed the 

contribution of each data field, 

individually and in combination, 

toward the potential re-identification of 

an applicant or borrower in the HMDA 

dataset. As described above, for 

purposes of the HMDA balancing test, a 

significant re-identification risk is 

created by uniqueness in the HMDA 

data among data fields that are also 

found in other records that identify an 

applicant or borrower. The Bureau has 

reviewed the availability of public 

records in several jurisdictions and has 

also considered qualitative factors such 

as the capacity, incentives, and 

characteristics of potential adversaries 

that may be interested in reidentification, the public availability of 

HMDA data fields in other datasets, the 

barriers to obtaining these datasets, and 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44596 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

65Binning, sometimes known as recoding or 

interval recoding, allows data to be shown clustered 

into ranges rather than as precise values. Top- and 

bottom-coding masks the precise values of a data 

field that appear above or below a certain threshold. 66As discussed below in part IV.B, the Bureau 

will make a modified loan/application register for 

each financial institution available on its Web site 

by March 31 following the calendar year for which 

the information was compiled. With respect to data 

compiled in 2018 or later, this proposed Policy 

Guidance describes the modifications the Bureau 

proposes to apply to each financial institution’s 

modified loan/application register, with the 

possible exception of modifications to reflect 

whether the loan amount is above 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), which may be disclosed 

later than March 31. HMDA data is reported by 

March 1 of the year following the calendar year for 

which the information was compiled, leaving the 

Bureau as little as 30 days to prepare each financial 

institution’s modified loan/application register. 67See part IV.C, below. 

the degree to which the other datasets 

are identifiable. The Bureau has also 

considered whether certain data fields 

may be more likely than others to be 

known by a potential adversary with 

personal knowledge about the applicant 

or borrower. 

The Bureau also considered whether 

disclosure of the loan-level HMDA data, 

if it were to be re-identified, would 

reveal information about the applicant 

or borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive. As 

described above, this consideration 

involved reviewing the potential for 

disclosure to cause financial fraud or 

identity theft, harmful targeted 

marketing, or sensitivity concerns. The 

Bureau considered the nature of 

potential harms that might result from 

disclosure of each data field 

individually and in combination, and 

the strength of the field’s contribution to 

such harms. The Bureau also considered 

whether each data field is typically 

publicly available in identified records 

and, if so, any barriers to accessing the 

information or restrictions on its use. 

In addition, the Bureau evaluated the 

contribution of the data fields, both 

individually and in combination, 

toward the purposes of HMDA: Helping 

to determine whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities; assisting 

public officials in distributing publicsector investment so as to attract private 

investment to areas where it is needed; 

and assisting in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

Every HMDA data field provides 

benefits to achieving the statutory 

purposes, but different data fields may 

provide more value for certain statutory 

purposes or types of analyses. Data 

fields were examined for both current 

and potential uses. 

For data fields the public disclosure 

of which the Bureau preliminarily 

believes would create risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy interests, either 

because a field increases reidentification risk or poses a risk of 

harm or sensitivity, the Bureau has 

weighed these risks against the benefits 

of disclosure. Where the Bureau has 

preliminarily determined that the 

disclosure of an individual data field, 

alone or in combination with other 

fields, would create risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy that are not 

justified by the benefits of disclosure to 

HMDA’s purposes, the Bureau has 

considered whether it could 

appropriately balance the privacy risks 

and disclosure benefits through 

strategies such as binning, rounding, 

and top- and bottom-coding,65 or 

whether the public dataset should be 

modified by excluding the field. The 

Bureau has also evaluated the risks and 

benefits of disclosing a data field in 

light of the proposed modifications 

considered for the other data fields. The 

Bureau is mindful of the connection 

between the risk of re-identification and 

the risk of harm or sensitivity. To the 

extent that the risk of re-identification 

created by disclosure of the HMDA data 

is reduced, the risk of disclosing 

harmful or sensitive information is also 

reduced. Conversely, to the extent that 

the public loan-level HMDA data do not 

disclose information that is harmful or 

sensitive, the consequences of reidentification are reduced. Where the 

Bureau has preliminarily determined 

that some modification of a data field is 

appropriate, the Bureau’s consideration 

of the available forms of modification 

for the HMDA data is also informed by 

the operational challenges associated 

with various forms of modification and 

the need to make financial institutions’ 

modified loan/application registers 

available to the public by March 31 

following the calendar year for which 

the data are reported.66

B. Application of the Balancing Test to 

Loan-Level HMDA Data 

As described above, the Bureau has 

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. Based on its 

analysis to date, the Bureau believes 

that public disclosure of the unmodified 

loan-level data that will be reported to 

the agencies under the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule, as a whole, would create 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy 

interests under the HMDA balancing 

test. This is due to the presence in the 

data of individual data fields that the 

Bureau believes would create reidentification risk and the presence of 

individual data fields that the Bureau 

believes would create a risk of harm or 

sensitivity. The Bureau has applied the 

balancing test to determine whether and 

how to modify the HMDA data that will 

be reported under the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule before it is disclosed to the public 

and is seeking comment on its proposed 

modifications. 

For the reasons discussed below, 

based on its application of the balancing 

test, the Bureau proposes to exclude or 

otherwise modify the following data 

fields in the loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed to the public: Universal loan 

identifier (ULI), application date, loan 

amount, action taken date, property 

address, age, credit score, debt-toincome ratio, property value, the unique 

identifier assigned by the Nationwide 

Mortgage Licensing System and Registry 

for the mortgage loan originator (NMLS 

ID); and automated underwriting system 

(AUS) result. The Bureau also proposes 

to exclude the content of free-form text 

fields used in certain instances to report 

the following data: Race, ethnicity, 

name and version of credit score model, 

reason for denial, and AUS system 

name. The Bureau proposes to publicly 

disclose without modification the 

remaining data reported to the agencies 

under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule. As 

discussed above, HMDA and Regulation 

C require the FFIEC to make available to 

the public certain aggregated data. The 

Bureau, in consultation with the other 

agencies, intends to evaluate options for 

providing the HMDA data, including the 

modified data, to the public in 

aggregated form, including through the 

aggregated data products the FFIEC is 

required to make available and other 

vehicles.67

The Bureau acknowledges that the 

proposed modifications would not 

completely eliminate risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy that would likely 

be created by the disclosure of loanlevel HMDA data, but the Bureau 

believes that these modifications would 

reduce such risks to the extent 

necessary to appropriately balance them 

with the benefits of disclosure for 

HMDA’s purposes. The Bureau believes 

that, to the extent that the public 

disclosure of the loan-level HMDA data, 

modified as proposed, would create 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy, 

such risks would be justified by the 

benefits of such release to the public in 

light of HMDA’s purposes. 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44597 

68See supra note 53. 

69As mentioned above and discussed further 

below, the Bureau proposes not to disclose freeform text fields used in certain instances to report 

the following data: The name and version of the 

credit scoring model, race, ethnicity, reasons for 

denial, and AUS name. 

70See 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 of 

scoring model), (a)(16)–(22), (a)(24)–(27), (a)(29)– 

(33), (a)(35)(i) (name of system), (a)(36)–(38) 

(effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

71The only data fields excluded from the public 

loan-level HMDA data under current Regulation C 

are the identifying number for the loan or loan 

application, the application date, and the action 

taken date. 

The Bureau has considered whether, 

in light of what it believes to be a 

reduced risk of re-identification for 

HMDA records reflecting an application 

where no loan was originated, more data 

could be disclosed without modification 

for those records. As discussed above, 

the Bureau believes that the lack of 

publicly available information about 

applications would make it significantly 

more difficult for an adversary to reidentify an applicant by matching a 

HMDA record to a record from an 

identified dataset. However, the Bureau 

believes that some risk of reidentification by matching may remain 

in some circumstances,68 and notes that 

an adversary’s personal knowledge may 

also permit re-identification of an 

application record. Further, the 

possibility that transactions could be 

reported as applications in error and be 

subsequently corrected in a 

resubmission would create risk that the 

previously-applied modifications would 

no longer be appropriate; the 

previously-disclosed HMDA data would 

have revealed information creating risks 

to applicant and borrower privacy that 

would not be justified by the benefits of 

disclosure. Finally, an approach 

requiring that different types of records 

in the dataset are subject to different 

modifications would be operationally 

challenging and costly to implement. In 

light of these privacy and operational 

concerns, the Bureau is not proposing 

this approach at this time, but invites 

comment on it. 

The Bureau seeks comment on all 

aspects of its analysis and the 

modifications it proposes to apply to the 

public loan-level HMDA dataset under 

the balancing test. The Bureau notes 

that, even after it finalizes this Policy 

Guidance, it intends to continue to 

monitor developments affecting the 

application of the balancing test to the 

HMDA data. The privacy landscape is 

constantly evolving, and risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy created 

by the disclosure of loan-level HMDA 

data may change as the result of 

technological advances and other 

external developments. For example, a 

new source of publicly available records 

may become available, increasing or 

decreasing privacy risks under the 

balancing test, or the Bureau may 

discover evidence suggesting that 

individuals are using the HMDA data in 

unforeseen, potentially harmful ways. 

Potential uses of the loan-level HMDA 

data in furtherance of the statute’s 

purposes may also evolve, such that the 

benefits associated with the disclosure 

of certain data may increase to an extent 

that justifies providing more 

information to the public. For example, 

a new loan program may emerge with 

debt-to-income ratio requirements that 

increase the benefits of releasing more 

precise information about the debt-toincome ratios of applicants or borrowers 

than the Bureau proposes herein to 

release. Such developments and other 

changed circumstances may require 

that, even after this proposed Policy 

Guidance is finalized, the Bureau revisit 

the conclusions previously reached 

based on the application of the 

balancing test in order to ensure the 

appropriate protection of applicant and 

borrower privacy in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. 

The Bureau is proposing this Policy 

Guidance to provide transparency, 

obtain public feedback, and improve the 

Bureau’s decisionmaking. This 

proposed Policy Guidance and any final 

Policy Guidance concerning the public 

disclosure of loan-level HMDA data are 

non-binding in part because flexibility 

to revise the modifications proposed to 

apply to the public loan-level HMDA 

data is necessary to maintain a proper 

balancing of the privacy risks and 

benefits of disclosure, especially in the 

event the Bureau becomes aware of new 

facts and circumstances that might 

contribute to privacy risks. However, 

except where not practical, unnecessary, 

or where public interest requires 

otherwise, the Bureau intends to seek 

public input on any future revisions to 

modifications to the public loan-level 

HMDA it might consider. 

Data To Be Disclosed in the Loan-Level 

HMDA Data Without Modification 

As discussed above, the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule requires financial institutions 

to report information about originations 

and purchases of mortgage loans, as 

well as mortgage loan applications that 

do not result in originations. The 

Bureau proposes to disclose the 

following data fields to the public as 

reported, without modification:69

• 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 

AUS name. 

• The following information about 

the property securing the loan: Census 

tract, State, county, occupancy type, 

construction method, manufactured 

housing secured property type, 

manufactured housing land property 

interest, and total units. 

• The following information about 

the application or loan: Loan term, loan 

type, loan purpose, application channel, 

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, HOEPA status, 

balloon payment, interest-only payment, 

negative amortization, other nonamortizing features, combined loan-tovalue ratio, open-end line of credit flag, 

business or commercial flag, and reverse 

mortgage flag. 

• The following information about 

the lender: Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), 

and financial institution name.70

Many of these data fields were 

adopted in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, 

while several are already required to be 

reported under current Regulation C. All 

of the data fields required by current 

Regulation C listed above are currently 

disclosed as reported without 

modification in the modified loan/ 

application register that each financial 

institution makes available to the public 

and in the agencies’ loan-level release.71

For the reasons discussed below, the 

Bureau proposes to publicly disclose the 

data fields listed above without 

modification in the loan-level HMDA 

data and requests comment on its 

proposal. 

With the exception of LEI, financial 

institution name, census tract, income, 

action taken (where the loan is denied), 

and reasons for denial, which are 

discussed further below, the Bureau 

believes that disclosure of the data 

fields listed above would likely present 

low risk to applicant and borrower 

privacy. First, the Bureau believes that, 

if the HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of most of these data fields 

would likely create minimal, if any, risk 

of harm or sensitivity to applicants or 

borrowers. These fields include basic 

information about the features of the 

loan or the property securing the loan— 

such as the application channel, loan 

term, and lien status—rather than 

information about personal 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44598 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

72Although the Bureau believes that ethnic and 

racial categories are not found in publicly available 

sources of identified records, comparing the 

ethnicity and race found in the HMDA record to the 

surname found in an identified public record may 

help an adversary narrow the range of public 

records against which to match a HMDA record. 

Information on surnames, in other contexts, has 

proven useful to proxy for ethnicity or race. The 

Bureau also believes that ethnicity and racial 

category may be more likely to be known by 

adversaries with personal knowledge of the 

applicant or borrower than other fields listed above. 

The Bureau seeks comment in particular on 

whether this risk is heightened with respect to 

disaggregated ethnicity and race and whether these 

disaggregated fields should be treated differently 

than aggregated ethnicity and race. 

73The Bureau believes that, although estimates of 

income may be available in private datasets, reliable 

income information typically is not available to the 

general public without barriers to access or use 

restrictions. The HMDA data will include the gross 

annual income relied on in making the credit 

decision, which may be more accurate. 

74The Bureau believes that consumers may still 

consider income information to be sensitive even 

though it is rounded to the nearest thousand when 

reported by financial institutions. 

75The Bureau notes that the fact that a loan was 

denied and the reasons for denial are reported only 

for applications that have been denied. As 

discussed above, the Bureau believes that the risk 

of re-identification of applicants where a loan is not 

originated is significantly lower than the risk to 

borrowers. Because these data fields are difficult to 

associate with an identified applicant or borrower, 

the Bureau believes that the risk of harm or 

sensitivity created by their disclosure is reduced. 

76Several data fields adopted in the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule are closely related to, or extensions of, 

data fields reported under current Regulation C. 

Specifically, the LEI will replace the current 

reporter’s ID, and reasons for denial may currently 

be reported at the option of the financial institution. 

However, financial institutions supervised by the 

OCC and the FDIC currently are required by those 

agencies to report denial reasons. 12 CFR 

27.3(a)(1)(i), 128.6, 390.147. 

77The LEI would enhance identification by 

allowing users to link the reporting financial 

institution to its corporate family. If the financial 

institution name is publicly disclosed, the LEI 

creates minimal, if any, additional privacy risk. 

characteristics or financial condition of 

the applicant or borrower, and the 

Bureau believes that applicants and 

borrowers are unlikely to consider the 

disclosure of this information to be 

sensitive. Further, the Bureau is aware 

of no clear advantage provided by most 

of these data fields for targeted 

marketing of products and services that 

may pose risks that are not apparent. 

The Bureau believes that certain fields 

about the loan, such as the pricing data 

fields, and certain fields about the 

borrower, such as ethnicity and race, 

may create relatively more risk of harm 

or sensitivity, but that these fields still 

present low privacy risk. Second, the 

Bureau believes that disclosure of most 

of these data fields would likely create 

minimal, if any, risk of substantially 

facilitating the re-identification of 

applicants and borrowers in the HMDA 

data. Most of these data fields are not 

found in publicly available sources of 

records that contain the identity of an 

applicant or borrower; without such an 

identified publicly available record, an 

adversary would experience substantial 

difficulty attempting to re-identify an 

applicant or borrower by matching a 

HMDA record using these data fields. 

Certain data fields may create relatively 

more risk of re-identification because 

they contain values that are not widely 

shared among applicants or borrowers, 

such as an ethnic and racial category, 

but the Bureau believes these fields still 

present low re-identification risk.72 As 

described above, public disclosure of 

these low-risk data fields benefits users 

in determining whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities; in 

distributing public-sector investment so 

as to attract private investment to areas 

where it is needed; and in identifying 

possible discriminatory lending patterns 

and enforcing antidiscrimination 

statutes. To the extent that disclosure of 

these fields would create risk to 

applicant and borrower privacy, the 

Bureau believes the risks would be 

justified by the benefits of disclosure. 

The Bureau believes that disclosure of 

the following data fields listed above 

would likely substantially facilitate the 

re-identification of applicants or 

borrowers: LEI, financial institution 

name, and census tract. The Bureau 

believes that publicly available real 

estate transaction records such as 

mortgages and deeds of trust typically 

contain the identity of the borrower, the 

name of the financial institution, and 

the property address, from which an 

adversary may derive the census tract. 

Although the uniqueness of a HMDA 

record will vary by census tract, the 

Bureau believes that these data fields 

could be used by an adversary to match 

a HMDA record to an identified public 

record. 

The Bureau also believes that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of the following data fields 

listed above would likely create a risk 

of harm or sensitivity: Income, action 

taken (where the loan is denied), and 

reasons for denial. These data fields are 

not otherwise available to the general 

public in an identified form without 

barriers to access or use restrictions.73

The Bureau believes that these data 

fields would likely be considered 

sensitive by many if not most 

consumers. Many consumers avoid 

sharing their incomes, even with 

personal acquaintances.74 The fact that 

a financial institution denied an 

application and some of the reasons for 

denial, such as employment history, 

credit history, debt-to-income ratio, or 

insufficient cash, could reveal negative 

details about a consumer’s personal 

financial situation.75 The Bureau also 

believes that these data fields could be 

used for harmful purposes, such as 

targeted marketing of products and 

services that may pose risks that are not 

apparent. 

The Bureau nonetheless believes that 

these risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy are justified by the benefits of 

disclosure in light of HMDA’s purposes. 

For years, these data fields have proven 

critical for furthering HMDA’s 

purposes.76 For example, the ability to 

identify the financial institution by 

name is critical for users to evaluate the 

lending practices of a financial 

institution.77 The census tract is 

essential for users to determine the 

availability of credit in certain 

communities and to identify potentially 

discriminatory lending patterns at the 

community level. Information about 

income ensures that users who are 

evaluating potential disparities in 

underwriting or pricing are comparing 

applicants or borrowers with similar 

incomes, thereby controlling for a factor 

that might provide a legitimate 

explanation for such disparities. Income 

data can also allow users to determine 

the availability of credit to consumers 

and communities of various income 

levels. Finally, action taken and reasons 

for denial, combined with underwriting 

information, help users compare the 

outcomes received by applicants and 

borrowers to identify potential 

disparities between similarly qualified 

applicants. The reasons for denial also 

help users understand why a particular 

loan application was denied and 

identify potential barriers in access to 

credit. 

The Bureau believes that, under the 

balancing test, the benefits of public 

disclosure of these data fields to 

HMDA’s purposes would justify the 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy 

such disclosure would likely create. In 

forming its proposal to publicly disclose 

these data fields without modification, 

the Bureau considered modifications 

that would reduce the risks to applicant 

and borrower privacy while preserving 

the benefits of disclosure. However, 

with the exception of income and 

census tract, which have for years 

proven critical for furthering HMDA’s 

purposes, no modifications other than 

exclusion from the public loan-level 

HMDA data are reasonably available for 

these data fields. Therefore, 

modification in these circumstances 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44599 

78 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i) (effective January 1, 

2018). 

79 Id. 

80 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(A) through (C). 

81 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(i)(B)(3). 

82Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., ‘‘Filing 

instructions guide for HMDA data collected in 

2018—OMB Control #3170–0008,’’ at 14, 48 (Jan. 

2017), available at http://www.consumerfinance.

gov/data-research/hmda/static/for-filers/2018/ 

2018-HMDA-FIG.pdf. 

83See 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1). 

84 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(G). 

85For example, in response to concerns about 

implications under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 

(GLBA) of the ‘‘longstanding common practice for 

a mortgage lender to place the borrower’s account 

number on a mortgage loan document to enable the 

document to be tracked and place in the proper file 

once the document is recorded and returned from 

the recording office,’’ Federal regulators issued 

guidance in 2001 opining that such practice does 

not violate the GLBA. See Letter from Fed. Reserve 

Board, Fed. Dep. Ins. Corp., Nat’l Credit Union 

Admin., Off. of the Comptroller of the Currency, 

Off. of Thrift Supervision, and Fed. Trade Comm’n 

(Sept. 4, 2001). 

86 In response to comments, the Bureau noted in 

the supplementary information to the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule that a financial institution may use a ULI 

for both HMDA purposes and the loan 

identification number prescribed by Regulation Z 

§ 1026.37(a)(12). 80 FR 66128, 66177 (Oct. 28, 

2015). 

87The FFIEC noted that ‘‘[a]n unedited form of 

the data would contain information that could be 

used to identify individual loan applicants’’ and 

that the data would be edited prior to public release 

to remove the application identification number, 

the date of application, and the date of final action. 

55 FR 27886, 27888 (July 6, 1990). 

88HMDA section 304(j), added by the Housing 

and Community Development Act, section 932(a), 

106 Stat. 3672, 3889 (1992). 

89 12 CFR 1003.5(c). 

90Comment 4(a)(1)(i)–2 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

would eliminate public utility of these 

data fields entirely. The Bureau seeks 

comment on its proposal to publicly 

disclose these fields without 

modification in the loan-level HMDA 

data. 

Data To Be Excluded or Otherwise 

Modified in the Loan Level HMDA Data 

Universal Loan Identifier 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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.78 The 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule sets forth detailed 

requirements concerning the ULI to be 

assigned and reported.79 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 the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule.80 In addition, a ULI 

must be unique within the institution 

and must not contain any information 

that could be used to directly identify 

the application or borrower.81

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 will be submitted as an 

alphanumeric field.82 The requirement 

to report a ULI replaces the requirement 

under current Regulation C that a 

financial institution report an 

identifying number for the loan or loan 

application.83 The loan or loan 

application number is currently 

excluded from both the modified loan/ 

application register that each financial 

institution makes available to the public 

and the agencies’ loan-level release. The 

Bureau added the requirement to report 

a ULI to implement the Dodd-Frank 

Act’s amendment to HMDA providing 

for the collection and reporting of, ‘‘as 

the Bureau may determine to be 

appropriate, a universal loan 

identifier.’’ 84

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that, depending on how 

financial institutions will use ULIs once 

they are adopted for HMDA purposes, 

disclosing the ULI in the loan-level 

HMDA data could substantially 

facilitate the re-identification of an 

applicant or borrower and that this risk 

would not be justified by the benefits of 

the disclosure. Therefore, until 

information is available concerning how 

financial institutions use ULIs other 

than for HMDA purposes, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA dataset made available to the 

public by excluding the ULI. 

A ULI would allow users to track over 

time a loan reported in HMDA data by 

different financial institutions. Using a 

ULI, a user could identify a loan 

originated by a HMDA reporter that is 

later purchased by another HMDA 

reporter, then sold and purchased again 

by yet another HMDA reporter. 

Understanding a loan’s history would 

assist in identifying whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities. Widespread 

adoption of ULIs to identify mortgage 

loans in other datasets also could allow 

users to track a loan from ‘‘cradle to 

grave,’’ i.e., to link information 

disclosed in the public HMDA data with 

information found in other datasets, 

such as datasets reflecting loan 

performance. 

The Bureau believes that, depending 

on how financial institutions use ULIs 

other than for HMDA purposes, public 

disclosure of a ULI in the loan-level 

HMDA data could create a significant 

risk of re-identification. If financial 

institutions include ULIs on loan 

documents that are made publicly 

available, the Bureau believes that 

disclosure of the ULI in the public loanlevel HMDA data would substantially 

facilitate the re-identification of HMDA 

records. As discussed above, many 

jurisdictions publicly disclose real 

estate transaction records in an 

identified form, such as mortgages and 

deeds of trust, and the Bureau believes 

that many financial institutions include 

loan numbers on these publiclyrecorded documents.85 The Bureau 

believes that financial institutions may 

replace the loan numbers currently 

assigned to mortgage loans with ULIs 86

and that, if they do, the ULI likely will 

be included on publicly-recorded loan 

documents. Especially in light of the 

uniqueness of a ULI, a ULI on a 

publicly-recorded loan document could 

be used to match a HMDA record to an 

identified public record directly and 

reliably. 

The Bureau notes that the FFIEC 

excluded identifying numbers for loans 

and applications from the agencies’ 

loan-level HMDA data release because 

the data field could be used to identify 

an applicant or borrower in the data.87

Similarly, Congress later identified 

applicant ‘‘identification number’’ as a 

field that the Board should consider 

deleting from the modified loan/ 

application register in order to protect 

the privacy of applicants and 

borrowers.88 In implementing this 

amendment to HMDA, the Board 

required that financial institutions 

remove ‘‘application or loan number’’ 

from the modified loan/application 

register before making it available to the 

public.89

The Bureau believes that a ULI would 

disclose minimal, if any, information 

about an applicant or borrower that may 

be harmful or sensitive. A ULI is 

associated with a particular application 

or loan. As noted above, the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule prohibits a financial 

institution from including in a ULI 

assigned to an application or loan 

information about the applicant or 

borrower that could be used to directly 

identify the applicant or borrower. 

Commentary to this provision clarifies 

that ‘‘information that could be used to 

directly identify the applicant or 

borrower includes but is not limited to 

the applicant’s or borrower’s name, date 

of birth, Social Security number, official 

government-issued driver’s license or 

identification number, alien registration 

number, government passport number, 

or employer or taxpayer identification 

number.’’ 90 Although the Bureau 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44600 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

91A hashed value would be based on the ULI and 

created by a secure hash algorithm. A hash 

algorithm is designed to be non-invertible, meaning 

that the original value, in this case the actual ULI, 

could not be derived from the hashed value. The 

hashed value would only appear in the HMDA data; 

as it would not appear in public records, it could 

not be used to re-identify the HMDA record. 

92 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(1)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

93Supra note 83 at 49. 

94Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act, Public Law 101–73, section 1211, 

103 Stat. 183, 524–26 (1989); 54 FR 51356 (Dec. 15, 

1989). 

95See 12 U.S.C. 2803(j)(2)(B)(i); 12 CFR 1003.5(c). 

96H. Rept. 101–209, at 463–65 (1989). 

97The FFIEC noted that ‘‘[a]n unedited form of 

the data would contain information that could be 

used to identify individual loan applicants’’ and 

that the data would be edited prior to public release 

to remove the application identification number, 

the date of application, and the date of final action. 

55 FR 27886, 27888 (July 6, 1990). 

98Housing and Community Development Act, 

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

3889 (1992). 

believes that financial institutions may 

include information within a ULI that is 

pertinent to the institution’s operations, 

as some do now with respect to loan 

numbers, it does not believe that such 

information would be considered 

sensitive or could be used for harmful 

purposes. 

The Bureau has considered whether a 

modification to the public loan-level 

HMDA dataset other than exclusion of 

the ULI would appropriately reduce the 

privacy risks created by the disclosure 

of the ULI in the loan-level data while 

maintaining some utility for HMDA’s 

purposes. For example, the Bureau has 

considered whether it could, in the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public, replace the reported ULI with a 

different unique number, such as a 

hashed value.91 The Bureau also has 

considered whether it might use some 

other means to link HMDA records 

sharing the same ULI without revealing 

the ULI itself. The Bureau is unable to 

identify a feasible modification at this 

time, however. The Bureau believes at 

this time that, under the balancing test, 

excluding the ULI 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. The Bureau seeks 

comment on this proposal. 

Application Date 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to report, except 

for purchased covered loans, the date 

the application was received or the date 

shown on the application form.92 This 

date will be submitted by financial 

institutions as the exact year, month, 

and day, in the format of 

YYYYMMDD.93 Financial institutions 

are required to report this data field 

under current Regulation C. The Board 

amended Regulation C in 1989 to 

require reporting of the date the 

application was received as part of its 

implementation of the Financial 

Institutions Reform, Recovery, and 

Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), 

which expanded HMDA to include data 

on applications, as well as data on the 

race, gender, and income of individual 

applicants and borrowers.94 The 

application date is currently excluded 

from both the modified loan/application 

register that each financial institution 

makes available to the public and the 

agencies’ loan-level release.95

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

application date 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA data made available to the 

public by excluding the date the 

application was received. 

The application date may be useful 

for identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. In enacting 

the FIRREA amendments to HMDA, 

Congress sought to improve the ability 

of HMDA users to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns by 

expanding HMDA to allow for 

comparison of accepted and rejected 

applications.96 The date of application 

furthered the purposes underlying this 

expansion. The application date helps 

ensure that users are comparing 

applicants or borrowers who applied for 

loans during similar dates, thereby 

controlling for factors that might 

provide a legitimate explanation for 

disparities, such as different market 

interest rates over different time 

periods. Users of HMDA data may also 

use the application date, in combination 

with the action taken date, to screen for 

delays between application and action 

dates that appear to exist on prohibited 

bases. 

The Bureau believes that public 

disclosure of application date would 

likely substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data. Disclosing 

the date of application would increase 

the ability of an adversary to associate 

a HMDA record with an applicant or 

borrower by matching it to an identified 

publicly available record. As discussed 

above, many jurisdictions publicly 

disclose real estate transaction records 

in an identified form, such as mortgages 

or deeds of trust. These records contain 

the date that the lender and borrower 

entered into or executed the agreement. 

This date is correlated with the 

application date data field, which 

reflects either the date the application 

was received or the date shown on the 

application form. Therefore, an 

adversary could use the date of 

application, combined with other data 

fields, to narrow the range of identified 

public records against which to compare 

the HMDA data, increasing the 

likelihood of matching records. 

The Bureau notes that the FFIEC 

excluded the application date from the 

agencies’ loan-level HMDA data release 

because the data field could be used to 

re-identify a particular applicant or 

borrower in the data.97 Similarly, when 

Congress directed that the Board require 

deletions from the loan-level HMDA 

data financial institutions must make 

available to the public to protect the 

privacy of applicants and borrowers, it 

identified the application date in 

particular as one field to be considered 

for deletion.98

If the HMDA data were re-identified, 

the Bureau believes that application 

date would likely disclose minimal, if 

any, information about an applicant or 

borrower that may be harmful or 

sensitive. Application date is not an 

inherently sensitive data field. Unlike 

other dates, such as date of birth, the 

date of application contains no intrinsic 

connection to an individual. Instead, the 

information is associated with an 

applicant or borrower for only a single 

transaction in the context of mortgage 

lending. Further, the Bureau believes 

that the date of application would be 

unlikely to be used for targeted 

marketing of products and services that 

may pose risks that are not apparent. 

HMDA data is disclosed annually 

based on the calendar year in which 

action is taken on an application. 

Although the Bureau proposes not to 

disclose the application date, the year of 

the loan-level HMDA data will often 

correspond to the year in which the 

application was received. The Bureau 

considered binning the values reported 

for the application date into quarterly or 

semi-annual intervals. However, the 

Bureau believes that quarterly intervals 

would fail to reduce re-identification 

risk adequately and that, compared to 

not disclosing application date, the 

gains in data utility that semi-annual 

intervals might allow do not justify the 

increase in privacy risk. Disclosing the 

date of application in quarterly intervals 

would provide an individual with a 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44601 

99The Bureau previously identified quarterly 

release of the loan-level HMDA data as a potential 

privacy concern. 80 FR 66128, 66243 (Oct. 28, 

2015). 

100 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(7) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

101Supra note 83, at 51. 

102 12 CFR 1003, Appendix A, I.A.20. 

103 12 U.S.C. 2803 

104 12 U.S.C. 2803 

105The 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 Federal Housing Finance Agency 

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) https://

www.fhfa.gov/Media/PublicAffairs/Pages/FHFAAnnounces-Increase-in-Maximum-ConformingLoan-Limits-for-Fannie-Mae-and-Freddie-Mac-in2017.aspx. 

narrower range of identified public 

records against which to compare the 

HMDA data.99 And although disclosing 

application dates in semi-annual 

intervals would reduce re-identification 

risk as compared to quarterly intervals, 

the Bureau believes it would only 

marginally increase the utility over the 

current, annual intervals while still 

increasing privacy risk. Users would 

need a narrower range to help ensure 

that they were comparing applicants 

who applied under similar market 

conditions. The Bureau believes at this 

time that, under the balancing test, 

excluding the application date 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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal. 

Loan Amount 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to report the 

amount of the covered loan or the 

amount applied for.100 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. The loan 

amount will be submitted by financial 

institutions in numeric form reflecting 

the exact dollar amount of the loan.101

Financial institutions are required to 

report this data field under current 

Regulation C rounded to the nearest 

thousand.102 Although HMDA has 

always required financial institutions to 

report information about the dollar 

amount of a financial institution’s 

mortgage lending activity,103 the Board 

amended Regulation C in 1989 to 

require reporting of the loan amount on 

a loan-level basis as part of its 

implementation of FIRREA.104

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the loan 

amount 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes 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 falls and by indicating 

whether the 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’’).105 For 

example, for a reported loan amount of 

$117,834, the Bureau would disclose 

$115,000 as the midpoint between 

values equal to $110,000 and less than 

$120,000. 

The loan amount is useful for 

determining whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities. By 

examining loan amount, users can better 

understand 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. Loan amount is also 

beneficial for identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

For example, the loan amount allows 

users to divide the population of 

applicants or borrowers into segments 

that may be subject to different 

underwriting or pricing policies, such as 

those applying for non-conforming 

mortgage loans. Combined with the 

property value, the loan amount would 

also allow users to calculate a loan-tovalue ratio, an important variable in 

underwriting. The loan amount and 

loan-to-value ratio would help ensure 

that users who are evaluating potential 

disparities in underwriting outcomes, 

pricing, or other terms and conditions 

are comparing applicants or borrowers 

who applied for or obtained loans with 

similar loan amount and loan-to-value 

ratios, thereby controlling for factors 

that might provide a legitimate 

explanation for disparities. 

The Bureau believes that disclosing 

the exact loan amount would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower. The loan amount is a numeric 

data field that will often consist of at 

least six digits, which increases its 

contribution to the uniqueness of a 

particular HMDA record. As discussed 

above, this information is also found in 

identified real estate transaction records 

such as mortgages and deeds of trust 

that are publicly disclosed by many 

jurisdictions. Therefore, in many cases, 

an adversary could use the exact loan 

amount, combined with other fields, to 

match a HMDA record to an identified 

publicly available record. 

If the HMDA data were re-identified, 

the Bureau believes that loan amount 

would likely disclose minimal, if any, 

information about an applicant or 

borrower that may be harmful or 

sensitive. In some cases, high loan 

amounts, combined with other 

information, may be considered 

sensitive or may indicate financial 

vulnerability that could form the basis 

for targeted marketing of products and 

services that may pose risks that are not 

apparent. The loan amount may also at 

least theoretically be used for phishing 

attacks. However, the Bureau believes 

that loan amount is often already 

included in identified publicly available 

documents, such as the mortgage or 

deed of trust. The Bureau believes that 

this existing public availability 

decreases any potential sensitivity and 

harmfulness of disclosing loan amount 

in the HMDA data. 

The Bureau believes that the loanlevel HMDA data may be modified to 

appropriately reduce the privacy risks 

created by the public disclosure of the 

loan amount while preserving much of 

the benefits of the data field. The 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

midpoint for the $10,000 interval into 

which the reported loan amount falls, 

and indicating whether the loan amount 

exceeds the applicable GSE conforming 

loan limit, provides enough precision to 

allow users to rely on loan amount to 

achieve HMDA’s purposes. For 

example, $10,000 intervals will allow 

users to segment applicants and 

borrowers that may be subject to 

different underwriting or pricing 

policies. In fact, for intervals that 

include the applicable GSE conforming 

loan limit, an indication of whether the 

loan amount is above the applicable 

limit may provide greater precision than 

is provided by the loan-level HMDA 

data currently disclosed to the public, in 

which certain loan amounts above and 

below the applicable limit will round to 

the same thousand. $10,000 intervals 

will not allow users to calculate an 

exact loan-to-value ratio, although users 

may still derive an estimated loan-tovalue ratio. However, the Bureau 

believes that releasing the combined 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44602 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

106See 24 CFR 203.18. 

107 24 CFR 203.18c. 

108 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(8)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

109Comment 4(a)(8)(ii)–5 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

110Comment 4(a)(8)(ii)–4 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

111Supra note 83, at 52. 

112 54 FR 51356 (Dec. 15, 1989). 

113See 12 U.S.C. 2803(j)(2)(B)(i); 12 CFR 

1003.5(c). 

114The FFIEC noted that ‘‘[a]n unedited form of 

the data would contain information that could be 

used to identify individual loan applicants’’ and 

that the data would be edited prior to public release 

to remove the application identification number, 

the date of application, and the date of final action. 

55 FR 27886, 27888 (July 6, 1990). 

115Housing and Community Development Act, 

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

3889 (1992). 

loan-to-value ratio, as it proposes to do, 

will be more beneficial for fair lending 

purposes than the loan-to-value ratio 

that users would have calculated from 

the exact loan amount and property 

value. Disclosing loan amount in 

$10,000 intervals also decreases the 

ability of adversaries to match HMDA 

data to identified public records by 

reducing the uniqueness of a data field 

common to both datasets. Because the 

Bureau is also proposing to modify 

reported property value similarly, 

adversaries will be unable to use the 

combined loan-to-value ratio to reduce 

the effectiveness of the proposed 

modification by deriving the reported 

loan amount. Although the proposed 

modifications do not entirely eliminate 

the risk of re-identification that the 

Bureau believes would likely be created 

by the disclosure of loan amount 

information, the Bureau believes that 

the remaining risk would be justified by 

the benefits of disclosing loan amount 

with the proposed modifications. 

Therefore, the Bureau believes at this 

time that, under the balancing test, 

modifying loan amount as described 

above appropriately balances the 

privacy risks and disclosure benefits. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal, including the proposed 

$10,000 intervals to be used for binning, 

the proposal to disclose the midpoint 

for each interval, and the proposal to 

indicate whether the reported loan 

amount exceeds the applicable GSE 

conforming loan limit. Additionally, the 

Bureau seeks comment on whether to 

indicate that a reported loan amount 

exceeds the applicable limit for loans 

eligible for insurance by the Federal 

Housing Administration (FHA 

conforming loan limit).106 Factors not 

reflected in the HMDA data may affect 

the accuracy of any such indicator, such 

as whether the loan amount has been 

increased by the amount of any onetime or up-front mortgage insurance 

premium that will be financed as part of 

the loan, in which case the loan may be 

eligible for insurance despite appearing 

in the HMDA data to exceed the 

applicable FHA conforming loan 

limit.107 The Bureau seeks comment on 

the value of indicating whether the 

reported loan amount exceeds the FHA 

conforming loan limit in light of these 

limitations. 

Action Taken Date 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to report the date 

of action taken by the financial 

institution on a covered loan or 

application.108 For originated loans, this 

date is generally the date of closing or 

account opening.109 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.110 This 

date is submitted by financial 

institutions as the exact year, month, 

and day, in the format of 

YYYYMMDD.111 Financial institutions 

are required to report this data field 

under current Regulation C. 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.112 The action taken date is also 

currently excluded from both the 

modified loan/application register that 

each financial institution makes 

available to the public and the agencies’ 

loan-level release.113

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

action taken date in the loan-level 

HMDA data released to the public 

would likely substantially facilitate the 

identification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the 

disclosure. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA dataset made available to the 

public by excluding the date of action 

taken by the financial institution. 

The action taken date may be useful 

for identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. The fair 

lending benefits provided by the date of 

action taken are similar to those 

provided by the date of application, 

described above. The action taken date 

helps ensure that users who are 

evaluating potential disparities in 

pricing or other terms and conditions 

are comparing applicants or borrowers 

who obtained loans on similar dates, 

thereby controlling for factors that might 

provide a legitimate explanation for 

such disparities, such as different 

market interest rates or different 

institutional practices over different 

time periods. Users of HMDA data may 

also use the date of action taken, in 

combination with application date, to 

screen for delays between application 

and action dates that appear to exist on 

prohibited bases. 

The Bureau believes that disclosing 

the action taken date would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data. Disclosing 

the action taken date would increase the 

ability of an adversary to associate a 

HMDA record with an individual by 

matching it to an identified publicly 

available record. As explained above, 

many jurisdictions publicly disclose 

real estate transaction records in an 

identified form, such as mortgages or 

deeds of trust. These records contain the 

date that the lender and borrower 

entered into or executed the agreement, 

which, like the application date, is 

closely correlated with the action taken 

date. Indeed, because the action taken 

date for originated loans is generally the 

date of closing or account opening, in 

most cases these dates will be identical. 

Therefore, in many cases, an adversary 

could use the action taken date, 

combined with other data fields, to 

match a HMDA record to an identified 

public record. 

The Bureau notes that, as with the 

application date, the FFIEC excluded 

the action taken date from the agencies’ 

loan-level HMDA data release because 

the data field could be used to reidentify a particular applicant or 

borrower in the data.114 Similarly, 

Congress later identified the action 

taken date as one field that the Board 

should consider deleting from the 

modified loan/application register to 

protect the privacy of applicants and 

borrowers.115

If the HMDA data were re-identified, 

the Bureau believes that, similar to the 

application date, the action taken date 

would likely disclose minimal, if any, 

information about an applicant or 

borrower that may be harmful or 

sensitive. As with the application date, 

the action taken date is not an 

inherently sensitive data field; it is 

associated with an applicant or 

borrower for only a single transaction in 

the context of mortgage lending and 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44603 

116However, as described above, the year of the 

loan-level HMDA data will disclose the year in 

which the action was taken. With respect to 

quarterly release of the HMDA data, the Bureau 

stated in the 2015 HMDA Final Rule that, based on 

its analysis to date, ‘‘disclosure of loan-level data 

with more granular date information than year of 

final action would create risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy that are not outweighed by the 

benefits of such disclosure.’’ 80 FR 66128, 66243 

n.389 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

117 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9)(i) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

118Comment 4(a)(9)(i)–1 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

For applications ‘‘the address should correspond to 

the location of the property proposed to secure the 

loan as identified by the applicant.’’ 

119Comment 4(a)(9)(i)–2 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

120 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(H). 

121The Bureau understands that some 

jurisdictions may allow borrowers to prevent their 

identities from being disclosed in public records, 

and some applicants or borrowers, such as victims 

of domestic violence, may hide their addresses to 

prevent certain individuals from locating them in 

person or to prevent other unwanted intrusions 

upon the sanctuary or seclusion of their homes. 

does not reflect an intrinsic connection 

to an individual. Further, the Bureau 

believes that the action taken date 

would be unlikely to be used for 

targeted marketing of products and 

services that pose risks that may not be 

apparent. 

Although the Bureau proposes not to 

disclose the action taken date, the loanlevel data will disclose the year in 

which final action was taken. As with 

application date, the Bureau considered 

binning the values reported for action 

taken date into quarterly or semi-annual 

intervals. However, the Bureau believes 

that quarterly intervals would fail to 

reduce re-identification risk adequately 

and that, compared to not disclosing 

action taken date, the gains in data 

utility that semi-annual intervals might 

allow do not justify the increase in 

privacy risk. Disclosing the action taken 

date in quarterly intervals would still 

provide an individual with a narrow 

range of identified public records 

against which to compare the HMDA 

data. And although disclosing action 

taken dates in semi-annual intervals 

would reduce re-identification risk as 

compared to quarterly intervals, it 

would only marginally increase the 

utility over the current, annual 

intervals, while still increasing privacy 

risk. Users would need a narrower range 

to help ensure that they were comparing 

borrowers who obtained loans under 

similar market conditions. The Bureau 

believes at this time that, under the 

balancing test, excluding action taken 

date is a modification to the public loanlevel HMDA data that appropriately 

balances the risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy and the benefits of 

disclosure.116 The Bureau seeks 

comment on this proposal. 

Property Address 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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.117 This 

address corresponds to the property 

identified on the legal obligation related 

to the covered loan.118 The format of the 

property address submitted by financial 

institutions will include, as applicable, 

the street address, city name, State 

name, and zip code.119 Financial 

institutions are not required to report 

this data field under current Regulation 

C. The Bureau added the requirement to 

report property address in the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule to implement the 

Dodd-Frank 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.’’ 120

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

property address in the loan-level 

HMDA data released to the public 

would substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower and that this risk would not be 

justified by the benefits of the 

disclosure. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA dataset made available to the 

public by excluding the property 

address. 

The address of the property securing 

the loan would be useful for identifying 

possible discriminatory lending 

patterns. With the exact property 

address, users could examine these 

patterns at a finer level of detail than 

that permitted by the census tract or 

other geographic boundaries. More 

precise geographic identification would 

also better allow public officials to 

target geographic areas that might 

benefit from public or private sector 

investment. Users could also better 

determine whether financial institutions 

are serving the housing needs of their 

communities with information that 

would enable identification of specific 

neighborhoods and communities 

smaller than census tracts. Finally, the 

property address would allow users to 

understand better the amount of equity 

retained in that property over time by 

tracking multiple liens associated with 

the same dwelling. This information 

would help identify communities with 

overleveraged properties. 

The Bureau believes that disclosure of 

the property address itself would likely 

present minimal, if any, risk of harm or 

sensitivity. Property owners’ addresses 

are generally widely publicly 

available.121 As explained above, the 

Bureau considers this public availability 

to reduce the risk of harm and 

sensitivity from the release of this data 

field. However, the Bureau believes that 

the widespread availability of property 

addresses creates a significant risk of reidentification. The Bureau believes that 

adversaries could easily match the 

property address contained in the 

HMDA data to identified publicly 

available property address information. 

Property addresses are publicly 

available through a number of sources, 

including real estate transaction records, 

property tax records, reverse phone 

directories, online real estate databases, 

and online ‘‘people search’’ Web sites. 

Because the address disclosed under 

Regulation C typically would be 

identical to the address contained in 

these publicly available records, an 

adversary would know that any match 

was likely to be accurate. Therefore, 

disclosing the property address in the 

loan-level HMDA data would 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower. Further, even if disclosing the 

property address would not permit 

matching, the Bureau believes that the 

disclosure of the property address alone 

could be used in harmful ways. For 

example, disclosure of property address 

would allow an applicant or borrower to 

be targeted with marketing for products 

and services that may pose risks that are 

not apparent. 

As an alternative to excluding the 

property address data field from the 

loan-level HMDA data released to the 

public, the Bureau considered releasing 

property address in a less granular form. 

For example, the Bureau could release 

geographic information that identifies 

the property securing the loan with less 

specificity. However, for most 

reportable transactions, Regulation C 

already requires reporting of three 

additional, less-precise geographic 

identifiers: (1) State; (2) county; and (3) 

census tract. As discussed above, the 

Bureau proposes to release these data 

fields without modification. Further, as 

discussed below in part IV.A, the 

Bureau proposes to identify in the 

public loan-level HMDA data the MSA 

or MD for each reported record. Other 

geographic identifiers exist with a level 

of precision between census tract and 

property address to which property 

addresses could be mapped, such as 

census block and census block group. 

However, the Bureau believes that these 

identifiers present similar reidentification risk to property address 

because they are sufficiently precise to 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44604 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

122 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 

2018). 

123Comment 4(a)(1)(ii)–1 (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

124 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(4). 

125For example, ECOA and Regulation B 

generally prohibit creditors from discriminating 

against applicants in credit transactions on the basis 

of age. 12 U.S.C. 1691(b)(1); 12 CFR 1002.4(a). 126 12 U.S.C. 2803(h)(3)(A)(ii). 

127See, e.g., U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Age and Sex 

Composition: 2010,’’ at tbl. 2, available at https:// 

www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br03.pdf (disclosing age in five-year intervals, i.e., 25 

to 29, 30 to 34, 35 to 40, etc.). 

128 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(15)(i) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

129 15 U.S.C. 1681g(f)(2)(A). 

130Supra note 83, at 62–63. 

enable an adversary to match them to 

publicly available property address 

information. The Bureau believes at this 

time that, under the balancing test, 

excluding property address 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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal. 

Age 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to report the age of 

an applicant or borrower.122 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.123 The Bureau added the 

requirement in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule to report age to implement the 

Dodd-Frank Act’s amendment to HMDA 

providing for the collection and 

reporting of age.124

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

applicant or borrower age in the loanlevel 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA dataset disclosed to the public 

by binning and top- and bottom-coding 

age and by indicating whether the 

reported value is 62 or higher. 

Applicant or borrower age would 

assist users in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

Age would be useful to evaluate 

potential age discrimination in 

lending.125 Disclosure of applicant or 

borrower age also would assist in 

identifying whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities, including 

the needs of various age cohorts. 

The Bureau believes that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of applicant or borrower age 

would likely reveal information about 

the applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive. The Bureau believes that, 

although information about an 

individual’s age may be available for 

purchase under some circumstances, 

birth and similarly reliable records 

reflecting age typically are not available 

to the general public without barriers to 

access or use restrictions. The Bureau 

believes that age likely would be 

considered sensitive by many if not 

most consumers and that disclosure of 

an identified applicant’s or borrower’s 

age could lead to dignity harm or 

embarrassment. The Bureau believes 

that many consumers would consider 

the disclosure of identified age to the 

general public to be outside of societal 

and cultural expectations. The Bureau 

also believes that identified age could be 

used to target marketing to applicants 

and borrowers, including marketing for 

products and services that may pose 

risks that are not apparent, and that the 

inclusion of this data field in the public 

loan-level HMDA data would increase 

the risk of such uses compared to today. 

The Bureau notes that in section 

304(h)(3)(A), added by the Dodd-Frank 

Act, Congress specifically identified age 

as a data field to which a modification 

under section 304(h)(1)(E) should apply 

if the Bureau determines it to be 

necessary to protect the privacy 

interests of applicants or borrowers.126

The Bureau believes that public 

disclosure in the loan-level HMDA 

dataset of unmodified applicant or 

borrower age may create some risk of 

facilitating the re-identification of 

applicants and borrowers in the HMDA 

data, but that this field likely would not 

substantially facilitate re-identification. 

For example, though information about 

an individual’s age may be available for 

purchase under some circumstances, the 

Bureau believes that an adversary 

typically would face difficulty 

attempting to re-identify an applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data by using 

age to match HMDA records to other 

identified records. An applicant’s or 

borrower’s age may be more likely to be 

known than other HMDA data by a 

person with pre-existing knowledge of a 

specific applicant or borrower, however, 

and may help such an adversary to reidentify a particular applicant or 

borrower. 

The Bureau believes that the loanlevel HMDA data may be modified to 

appropriately reduce the privacy risks 

created by the public disclosure of age 

while preserving much of the benefits of 

the data field. The Bureau proposes to 

disclose age binned into the following 

ranges, as applicable: 25 to 34; 35 to 44; 

45 to 54; 55 to 64; and 65 to 74. For 

example, a reported age of 52 would be 

shown in the public loan-level HMDA 

data as between 45 and 54. The Bureau 

also proposes to bottom-code age under 

25 and to top-code age over 74. For 

example, a reported age of 22 would be 

shown in the public loan-level HMDA 

data as 24 or under. The Bureau 

proposes the particular intervals 

described above to allow HMDA data 

users to analyze HMDA data in 

combination with data found in other 

public data sources, such as U.S. Census 

Bureau data.127 Finally, the Bureau 

proposes 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 elderly populations. The 

Bureau recognizes 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 seeks comment on 

whether privacy risks created by such 

increased precision are justified by the 

benefits of disclosure in the proposed 

ranges. Specifically, the Bureau seeks 

comment on whether, instead of binning 

as proposed and indicating whether a 

reported age is 62 or higher, the Bureau 

should structure the bins to disclose 

reported ages of 55 to 74 in ranges of 55 

to 61 and 62 to 74. The Bureau believes 

at this time that, under the balancing 

test, the proposed modifications to the 

public loan-level HMDA dataset would 

appropriately balance the risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and the 

benefits of disclosure. The Bureau seeks 

comment on this proposal, including 

the proposal to bin age and the 

proposed intervals to be used for 

binning. 

Credit Score 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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.128 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).129 The credit score or scores 

relied on in making the credit decision 

will be submitted as a numeric field, 

e.g., 650.130 A financial institution will 

submit a code from a specified list to 

indicate the name and version of the 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44605 

131Supra note 83, at 63–64. 

132 12 U.S.C. 2803(b)(6)(I). 

133As noted above, the Bureau proposes to 

disclose without modification the reported name 

and version of the credit score model used. 

134Credit scores based on consumer credit reports 

are consumer reports for purposes of the Fair Credit 

Reporting Act (FCRA). Accordingly, for example, 

they may be obtained from a consumer reporting 

agency only for a permissible purpose under the 

statute, such as in connection with an application 

for credit. See 12 U.S.C. 1681b(a). 

135For example, a marketer currently may obtain 

from a consumer reporting agency a ‘‘prescreened’’ 

list of consumers meeting certain criteria, such as 

a minimum credit score, only for the purpose of 

making a ‘‘firm offer of credit or insurance.’’ 15 

U.S.C. 1681b(c), 1681a(l). 

136 12 U.S.C. 2803(h)(3)(A)(i). 

scoring model used to generate each 

credit score reported.131 The Bureau 

added the requirement in the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule to report information 

about the credit score or scores relied on 

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.’’ 132

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

credit score or scores relied on in 

making the credit decision in the loanlevel 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the public loan-level 

HMDA dataset by excluding the credit 

score or scores relied on in making the 

credit decision.133

The credit score or scores relied on in 

making the credit decision would assist 

users in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

Applicants’ credit scores generally are 

considered to be important indicators of 

creditworthiness and are used in 

mortgage underwriting and pricing 

decisions. Disclosure of the credit score 

in the public loan-level HMDA data 

would help ensure that users are 

comparing applicants and borrowers 

with similar credit profiles, thereby 

controlling for factors that might 

provide a legitimate explanation for 

disparities in credit and pricing 

decisions. Credit scores would also 

assist in identifying whether financial 

institutions are serving the housing 

needs of their communities. For 

example, in order to serve the housing 

needs of particular communities, a 

financial institution may offer different 

types of loan products in communities 

with high numbers of borrowers with 

high credit scores than in communities 

with high numbers of borrowers with 

low credit scores. 

The Bureau believes that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of the credit score relied on 

in making the credit decision would 

likely disclose information about the 

applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive. A credit score is a numerical 

summary of a consumer’s apparent 

creditworthiness, based on the 

consumer’s credit report, and reflects 

the likelihood relative to other 

consumers that the consumer will 

default on a credit obligation. Identified 

consumer credit scores and the 

consumer reports upon which they are 

based are not available to the general 

public. To the extent credit scores based 

on consumer reports are available for 

commercial purposes, they may be 

obtained under limited circumstances 

and are subject to restrictions on their 

use.134 The Bureau believes that most 

consumers consider their credit score to 

be very sensitive information. The 

Bureau believes that public disclosure 

of an applicant’s or borrower’s 

identified credit score could lead to 

dignity or reputational harm or 

embarrassment, and that many 

consumers would consider the 

disclosure of identified credit scores to 

the general public to be outside of 

societal and cultural expectations. The 

Bureau also believes that an identified 

credit score could be used to target 

marketing to applicants and borrowers, 

including marketing for products and 

services that may pose risks that are not 

apparent, and that the inclusion of this 

data field in the public loan-level 

HMDA data would increase the risk of 

such uses compared to today.135 The 

Bureau notes that in section 

304(h)(3)(A), added by the Dodd-Frank 

Act, Congress specifically identified 

credit score as a data field to which a 

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

should apply if the Bureau determines 

it to be necessary to protect the privacy 

interests of applicants or borrowers.136

The Bureau has considered the extent 

to which the age of the loan-level 

HMDA data at the time it is disclosed 

may reduce the risk of harm or 

sensitivity created by the public 

disclosure of credit score were the 

HMDA data to be re-identified. For 

example, as noted above, timely data are 

essential for most marketing or 

advertising efforts, and the delay 

between the date a reported credit score 

is obtained by the financial institutions 

and public disclosure of the loan-level 

HMDA data on the modified loan/ 

application register ranges from to 3 to 

15 months. An applicant’s or borrower’s 

credit score may change enough over 

these time periods to reduce the 

usefulness of a score disclosed in the 

public HMDA data for marketing 

purposes. However, the Bureau does not 

believe that the passage of these time 

periods would reduce the risk of 

sensitivity created by the disclosure of 

credit score. For example, the Bureau 

does not believe that a borrower would 

consider the disclosure of her identified 

six-month-old credit score to be much 

less sensitive than disclosure of her 

current credit score; the potential for 

dignity or reputational harm or 

embarrassment from a neighbor or other 

acquaintance learning the information 

remains significant. 

The Bureau believes that disclosure in 

the loan-level HMDA data of the credit 

score or scores relied on in making the 

credit decision creates minimal risk, if 

any, of substantially facilitating the reidentification of applicants and 

borrowers in the HMDA data. As 

discussed above, credit scores are not 

included in identified records available 

to the general public. A creditor or 

marketer may possess identified credit 

score information obtained in 

connection with, for example, an 

application for credit or a request for a 

prescreened list, but the Bureau does 

not believe that such information would 

be useful for purposes of re-identifying 

an applicant or borrower in the loanlevel HMDA data. The variation in 

credit scoring models and versions, 

along with the likely difference in the 

dates that a credit score in the HMDA 

data and the credit score information in 

possession of a creditor or marketer 

were created, would make matching the 

credit score in loan-level HMDA data to 

such privately held information 

challenging and unreliable. The Bureau 

believes an adversary would face 

substantial difficulty attempting to reidentify an applicant or borrower by 

using credit score or scores relied on to 

match HMDA records to other identified 

records. 

The Bureau considered whether 

modifications to the public loan-level 

HMDA dataset other than excluding 

credit score, such as binning or 

rounding of credit score, would 

appropriately reduce the privacy risks 

created by the disclosure of credit score 

in the loan-level data while maintaining 

some utility for HMDA’s purposes. 

However, the Bureau believes that these 

strategies would not appropriately 

reduce the risk of harm or sensitivity 

and that the gains in data utility that 

these strategies might allow would not 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44606 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

137 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(23) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

138Supra note 83, at 36, 38. 

139HMDA section 304(b)(6). 

140 12 CFR 1026.43(e)(2)(vi). 

141See, e.g., Fannie Mae, ‘‘B3–6–02: Debt to 

Income Ratios,’’ (Aug. 30, 2016), available at 

https://www.fanniemae.com/content/guide/selling/ 

b3/6/02.html. 

justify the privacy risk created by the 

disclosure of the modified field. For 

example, the Bureau believes that, even 

if it were to disclose in the loan-level 

HMDA data the credit score for a 

particular record as being in one of two 

or three large bins, this information 

would still create a significant 

sensitivity risk if the record were reidentified. The Bureau believes that the 

utility to HMDA’s purposes of such 

binned credit score information would 

not justify these risks. The Bureau 

believes at this time that, under the 

balancing test, excluding credit score 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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal. 

Debt-to-Income Ratio 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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 (debt-to-income ratio).137 The 

debt-to-income ratio relied on in making 

the credit decision will be submitted as 

a percentage.138 The Bureau added the 

requirement in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule to report information about the 

debt-to-income ratio relied on using its 

discretionary authority to require the 

reporting of ‘‘such other information as 

the Bureau may require’’ provided by 

the Dodd-Frank Act’s amendment to 

HMDA.139

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the debtto-income ratio relied on in making the 

credit decision 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, for certain debt-to-income ratio 

values, this risk would not be justified 

by the benefits of the disclosure. 

Therefore, the Bureau proposes to 

modify the loan-level HMDA dataset by 

binning and top- and bottom-coding 

certain debt-to-income ratio values. 

The debt-to-income ratio relied on in 

making the credit decision would assist 

users in identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns and 

enforcing antidiscrimination statutes. 

Applicants’ debt-to-income ratios 

generally are considered to be important 

indicators of ability to repay and are 

used in mortgage underwriting 

decisions and some pricing decisions. 

Disclosure of debt-to-income ratio in the 

public loan-level HMDA data would 

help ensure that users are comparing 

applicants and borrowers with similar 

profiles, thereby controlling for factors 

that might provide a legitimate 

explanation for disparities in credit and 

pricing decisions. Debt-to-income ratio 

values that are at or close to regulatory 

or program benchmarks are especially 

critical to identifying possible 

discriminatory lending patterns. These 

benchmarks include, for example, the 

43 percent debt-to-income limit for a 

qualified mortgage under Regulation 

Z140 and the debt-to-income ratio limits 

imposed by guarantors and investors.141

Disclosure of debt-to-income ratio also 

would assist in identifying whether 

financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities. For 

example, in order to serve the housing 

needs of particular communities, 

financial institutions may offer different 

types of loan products in communities 

with high numbers of borrowers with 

high debt-to-income ratios than in 

communities with high numbers of 

borrowers with low debt-to-income 

ratios. 

The Bureau believes that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of an applicant’s or 

borrower’s debt-to-income ratio relied 

on in making the credit decision would 

likely disclose information about the 

applicant or borrower that is not 

otherwise public and may be harmful or 

sensitive. The debt-to-income ratio 

generally reflects the amount of an 

applicant’s or borrower’s monthly debt, 

including the payment for the mortgage 

loan sought or originated, relative to his 

or her monthly income. In addition, 

when combined with other information 

that the Bureau proposes to publicly 

disclose in the loan-level HMDA data, 

such as information about the mortgage 

loan sought or originated and applicant 

or borrower income relied on in making 

the credit decision, disclosure of debtto-income ratio may permit a user to 

approximate the amount of the 

applicant’s or borrower’s monthly debt 

excluding mortgage debt. Information 

about a consumer’s debt is not available 

to the general public without barriers to 

access and restrictions on use. The 

Bureau believes that most consumers 

consider information about their debt to 

be sensitive information and that the 

public disclosure of an identified 

applicant’s or borrower’s debt-to-income 

ratio, especially at higher ratios, could 

lead to dignity or reputational harm or 

embarrassment. The Bureau also 

believes that, especially with respect to 

higher or lower debt-to-income ratios, 

identified information about an 

identified applicant’s or borrower’s debt 

could be used to target marketing to the 

applicant or borrower, including 

marketing for products and services that 

may pose risks that are not apparent. 

The Bureau believes that disclosure in 

the loan-level HMDA data of the debtto-income ratio relied on in making the 

credit decision creates minimal risk, if 

any, of substantially facilitating the reidentification of applicants and 

borrowers in the HMDA data. As 

mentioned above, information about a 

consumer’s debts is not included in 

identified records available to the 

general public and, to the extent such 

information is available for commercial 

purposes, it generally may be obtained 

under limited circumstances and is 

subject to restrictions on its use. To the 

extent that a creditor possessed 

information about an applicant or 

borrower’s debt or debt-to-income ratio, 

the Bureau does not believe that such 

information would be useful for 

purposes of re-identifying an applicant 

or borrower in the loan-level HMDA 

data. The variation in methods of 

calculating debt-to-income ratio along 

with changes in the ratio or the amount 

of debt over time would make using 

debt-to-income ratio in the public loanlevel HMDA data to match to any 

privately held debt or debt-to-income 

ratio information challenging and 

unreliable. The Bureau believes an 

adversary would face substantial 

difficulty attempting to re-identify an 

applicant or borrower by using debt-toincome ratio or debt amount to match 

HMDA records to other identified 

records. 

The Bureau believes that disclosing 

unmodified debt-to-income ratio values 

in the loan-level HMDA data released to 

the public would create risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy but that, 

with respect to debt-to-income values 

greater than or equal to 40 percent and 

less than 50 percent, these risks would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosure 

to HMDA’s purposes. Debt-to-income 

ratio values in this range are generally 

at or close to regulatory and guarantor 

and investor program benchmarks and 

are especially critical to identifying 

possible discriminatory lending patterns 

because they may reveal nondiscriminatory explanations for 

differential treatment. Accordingly, the 

Bureau proposes to release reported 

debt-to-income values of greater than or 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44607 

142For example, debt-to-income values of 

between 35 percent and 40 percent could be 

disclosed without modification, or the Bureau 

could indicate in the loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed to the public whether the reported debtto-income ratio is 36 percent or higher. 

143 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(28) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

144 Id. 

145Supra note 83, at 71. 

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

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

equal to 40 percent and less than 50 

percent without modification. 

With respect to all other debt-toincome ratio values, the Bureau believes 

that the risks to applicant and borrower 

privacy that would be created by the 

disclosure of the unmodified field likely 

would not be justified by the benefits of 

the disclosure, but that the loan-level 

HMDA data may be modified to 

appropriately reduce the privacy risks 

while preserving some of the benefits of 

the data field. The Bureau proposes to 

bin reported debt-to-income ratio values 

into the following ranges, as applicable: 

20 percent to less than 30 percent; 30 

percent to less than 40 percent; and 50 

percent to less than 60 percent. For 

example, a reported debt-to-income 

ratio of 35 percent would be shown in 

the loan-level HMDA data disclosed to 

the public as a debt-to-income ratio of 

between 30 percent and less than 40 

percent. The Bureau also proposes 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 example, a 

reported debt-to-income ratio of 63 

percent would be shown in the public 

loan-level HMDA data as 61 percent or 

higher. The Bureau believes at this time 

that, under the balancing test, these 

modifications to the public loan-level 

HMDA data would appropriately 

balance the risks to applicant and 

borrower privacy and the benefits of 

disclosure. 

The Bureau has considered whether it 

should disclose debt-to-income ratio at 

or close to 36 percent without 

modification.142 It is the Bureau’s 

understanding 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-to-income ratio is above 

or below this value would help users 

seeking to identify possible 

discriminatory lending patterns to 

control for factors that might provide a 

legitimate explanation for disparities in 

credit or pricing decisions. The Bureau 

seeks 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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal, including both the proposal to 

bin and top- and bottom-code certain 

debt-to-income values and the proposed 

intervals to be used for binning. 

Property Value 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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.143

Financial institutions will report the 

value relied on in making the credit 

decision, such as an appraisal value or 

the purchase price of the property.144

The property value will be reported in 

numeric form reflecting the exact dollar 

amount of the value relied on.145 The 

Bureau added the requirement to report 

the property value 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.146

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

property value 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA data by disclosing the midpoint 

for the $10,000 interval into which the 

reported property value falls. For 

example, for a 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 property value data field would 

be useful for determining whether 

financial institutions are serving the 

housing needs of their communities. 

Users could better understand the 

values of properties for which financial 

institutions are (and are not) providing 

financing to consumers in certain 

communities. The property value, 

combined with the loan amount and 

combined loan-to-value ratio, can also 

be used to determine whether the 

property is subject to a second lien. 

Property value would also be beneficial 

for identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. Combined 

with the loan amount, the property 

value would allow users to calculate a 

loan-to-value ratio, an important 

variable in underwriting. The loan-tovalue ratio would help ensure that users 

who are evaluating potential disparities 

in underwriting outcomes, pricing, or 

other terms and conditions are 

comparing applicants or borrowers who 

obtained or applied for loans with 

similar loan-to-value ratios, thereby 

controlling for factors that might 

provide a legitimate explanation for 

disparities. 

The Bureau believes that disclosing 

the exact property value would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower. As with loan amount, 

property value is a numeric data field 

that will often consist of at least six 

digits, which increases its contribution 

to the uniqueness of a particular HMDA 

record. As discussed above, many 

jurisdictions publicly disclose property 

tax records or real estate transaction 

records in an identified form, such as 

mortgages or deeds of trust. These 

records contain estimates of property 

value or information that is closely 

related to property value. Although the 

value of the property reflected in these 

public records generally will not be 

identical to the property value relied on 

by the financial institution in making 

the credit decision, the Bureau believes 

that it may be close enough to permit 

matching. Therefore, in many cases, an 

adversary could use the exact property 

value, combined with other fields, to 

match a HMDA record to an identified 

publicly available record. 

If the HMDA data were re-identified, 

the Bureau believes that the property 

value would likely disclose minimal, if 

any, information about an applicant or 

borrower that may be harmful or 

sensitive. In some cases, the property 

value may be combined with other 

information to identify borrowers with 

high levels of equity, which information 

could be used to target borrowers with 

predatory lending offers. For most 

consumers, however, the Bureau 

believes that property value would be 

unlikely to be used for targeted 

marketing of products and services that 

pose risks that may not be apparent. 

Indeed, the Bureau believes that 

information about borrower equity is 

already available to many marketers and 

may be calculated or estimated from 

publicly available property tax or real 

estate transaction records that include 

loan amounts and property values, such 

as mortgages and real estate sales 

records. Estimates of property value are 

also available through online real estate 

databases. 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44608 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

147 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(34) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

148Supra note 83, at 75. 

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

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

150 12 CFR 1026.36(g). 151 80 FR 66128, 66232 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

The Bureau believes that the loanlevel HMDA data may be modified to 

appropriately reduce the privacy risks 

created by the public disclosure of the 

property value while preserving much 

of the benefits of the data field. The 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

midpoint for the $10,000 interval into 

which the reported property value falls 

provides enough precision to allow 

users to rely on property value to 

achieve HMDA’s purposes. For 

example, $10,000 intervals will provide 

general information about values of 

properties for which financial 

institutions are providing financing. 

Such intervals will not allow users to 

calculate an exact loan-to-value ratio, 

although users may still derive an 

estimated loan-to-value ratio. However, 

the Bureau believes that releasing the 

combined loan-to-value ratio, as it 

proposes to do, will be more beneficial 

for fair lending purposes than the loanto-value ratio that users would have 

calculated from the exact loan amount 

and property value. Disclosing the 

midpoint for the $10,000 interval into 

which the reported property value falls 

also decreases the ability of adversaries 

to match HMDA data to identified 

public records by reducing the 

uniqueness of a data field common to 

both datasets. Because the Bureau is 

also proposing to bin loan amount 

similarly, adversaries will be unable to 

use the combined loan-to-value ratio to 

reduce the effectiveness of the proposed 

modification by deriving the reported 

property value. Although such 

modifications do not entirely eliminate 

the risk of re-identification, the Bureau 

believes that the remaining risk would 

be justified by the benefits of disclosing 

the property value in $10,000 intervals. 

Therefore, the Bureau believes at this 

time that, under the balancing test, 

modifying property value as described 

above appropriately balances the 

privacy risks and disclosure benefits. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal, including both the proposed 

$10,000 intervals to be used for binning 

and the proposal to disclose the 

midpoint for each interval. 

Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 

and Registry Identifier 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to report ‘‘the 

unique identifier assigned by the 

Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System 

and Registry [NMLSR ID] for the 

mortgage loan originator, as defined in 

Regulation G, 12 CFR 1007.102, or 

Regulation H, 12 CFR 1008.23, as 

applicable.’’ 147 The NMLSR ID will be 

submitted by financial institutions in 

numeric form, such as 123450.148 The 

Bureau added the requirement to report 

the NMLSR ID in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule 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.’’ 149

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing the 

NMLSR ID 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. Therefore, the Bureau 

proposes to modify the loan-level 

HMDA data by excluding the NMLSR 

ID. 

The NMLSR ID would be useful for 

identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. The NMLSR 

ID would allow users to identify 

individual mortgage loan originators 

with primary responsibility over 

applications, originations, and 

purchased loans. This information 

would help public officials and 

members of the public to identify loan 

originators that are engaged in 

problematic business practices, which 

would provide a greater level of 

precision for understanding and 

correcting possible discriminatory 

lending patterns. 

The Bureau believes that disclosing 

the NMLSR ID would likely 

substantially facilitate the reidentification of an applicant or 

borrower in the HMDA data. The 

NMLSR ID is required to appear on 

various documents associated with the 

loan, including the security 

instrument.150 As explained above, 

many jurisdictions publicly disclose 

these real estate transaction records in 

an identified form. Although the 

NMLSR ID is not unique to an 

individual HMDA record, it is unique to 

the mortgage loan originator who is 

unlikely to be associated with many 

loans for which the other HMDA data 

fields are identical. Therefore, in many 

cases, an adversary could use the 

NMLSR ID, combined with other data 

fields, to match a HMDA record to an 

identified public record. 

If the HMDA data were re-identified, 

the Bureau believes that the NMLSR ID 

would likely disclose minimal, if any, 

information about an applicant or 

borrower that may be harmful or 

sensitive. The Bureau understands that 

the NMLSR ID may allow users to 

determine information that loan 

originators may consider sensitive. 

However, as explained in the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule, because the DoddFrank Act explicitly amended HMDA to 

add a loan originator identifier, while at 

the same time directing the Bureau to 

modify or require modification of 

itemized information ‘‘for the purpose 

of protecting the privacy interests of the 

mortgage applicants or mortgagors,’’ the 

Bureau believes it is reasonable to 

interpret HMDA as not requiring 

modifications of itemized information to 

protect the privacy interests of mortgage 

loan originators, and that that 

interpretation best effectuates the 

purposes of HMDA.151 Rather, under the 

balancing test, the Bureau evaluates the 

risks to applicant and borrower privacy 

interests and the benefits of public 

disclosure in light of the statutory 

purposes. Because the NMLSR ID 

conveys no sensitive information about 

applicants or borrowers, the Bureau 

believes that disclosure of this data field 

would create minimal, if any, risk of 

harm or sensitivity under the balancing 

test. However, because the Bureau 

believes that disclosing the NMLSR ID 

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, the Bureau proposes not 

to disclose in the loan-level HMDA data 

the NMLSR ID. 

The Bureau has considered whether a 

modification to the public loan-level 

HMDA dataset other than exclusion of 

the NMLSR ID would appropriately 

reduce the privacy risks created by 

disclosure while maintaining some 

utility for HMDA’s purposes. For 

example, as with the ULI, the Bureau 

has considered whether it could, in the 

loan-level HMDA data disclosed to the 

public, replace the NMLSR ID reported 

to the regulators with a different unique 

number, such as a hashed value. The 

Bureau is unable to identify a feasible 

modification at this time, however. The 

Bureau believes at this time that, under 

the balancing test, excluding the 

NMLSR ID is a modification to the 

public loan-level HMDA data that 

appropriately balances the risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy and the 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44609 

152 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(i) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

153 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 

2018). 

154Supra note 8, at 74–75. AUS result will be 

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; Code 16—Other; 

Code 17—Not applicable. If the AUS result is not 

listed, the financial institution will submit code 16 

for ‘‘other’’ and will report in a free-form text field 

the name and version of the scoring model used. 

155Comment 4(a)(35)–3 (concerning reporting of 

multiple AUS results); supra note 83, at 37–39, 73. 

156HMDA section 304(b)(6). 

157As discussed above, the Bureau proposes to 

disclose AUS name. 

158For example, a ‘‘refer with caution’’ result 

would indicate that the loan would need to be 

manually underwritten. 

159 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(15)(i) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

160Supra note 83, at 33–34, 63–64. 

161 Id. 

162 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(i); supra note 83, at 21– 

31. 

163 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(10)(i); supra note 83, at 17– 

20. 

164 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(16); supra note 83, at 35–36. 

165 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(35)(i); supra note 83, at 38– 

40. 

benefits of disclosure. The Bureau seeks 

comment on this proposal. 

Automated Underwriting System Result 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule 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.’’ 152 The 2015 

HMDA Final Rule 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.’’ 153 A 

financial institution will submit a code 

from a specified list to indicate the 

result or results generated by the AUS 

or AUSs used.154 Up to five AUS names 

and five AUS results may be 

reported.155 The Bureau added these 

requirements in the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule using its discretionary authority to 

require the reporting of ‘‘such other 

information as the Bureau may require’’ 

provided by the Dodd-Frank Act’s 

amendment to HMDA.156

For the reasons given below, the 

Bureau believes that disclosing in the 

loan-level HMDA data released to the 

public the AUS result field 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. Therefore, 

the Bureau proposes to modify the 

public loan-level HMDA dataset by 

excluding the AUS result field.157

The AUS result would assist users in 

identifying possible discriminatory 

lending patterns and enforcing 

antidiscrimination statutes. The AUS 

result would assist in understanding a 

financial institution’s underwriting 

decision-making and would help ensure 

that users are comparing applicants and 

borrowers with similar profiles, thereby 

controlling for factors that might 

provide a legitimate explanation for 

disparities in credit and pricing 

decisions. 

The Bureau believes that, if the 

HMDA data were re-identified, 

disclosure of AUS result would likely 

disclose information about the applicant 

or borrower that is not otherwise public 

and may be harmful or sensitive. 

Applicants’ AUS results are not 

available to the general public. An AUS 

result is based on a complex set of 

factors used to evaluate the credit risk 

associated with a loan. The traditional 

underwriting process often uses, among 

other things, loan-to-value ratio to 

evaluate collateral, credit score to 

evaluate creditworthiness and 

willingness to pay, and debt-to-income 

ratio to evaluate ability to pay. The 

result from an AUS reflects in a single 

indicator these and other factors used to 

evaluate the risk of the borrower and the 

eligibility of the loan to be purchased, 

insured, or guaranteed. The Bureau 

believes that, if a HMDA record were 

associated with an identifiable applicant 

or borrower, disclosure of a ‘‘negative’’ 

AUS result 158 would reveal information 

that would likely be perceived as 

reflecting negatively on the applicant or 

borrower’s willingness or ability to pay. 

The Bureau believes that most 

consumers would consider such 

information sensitive and that 

disclosure of this information could 

lead to dignity harm or embarrassment. 

The Bureau believes that this field also 

could be used to target marketing to 

applicants or borrowers, including 

marketing of products and services that 

may pose risks that are not apparent. 

The Bureau believes that disclosure in 

the loan-level HMDA data of AUS result 

would create minimal, if any, risk of 

facilitating the re-identification of 

applicants and borrowers in the HMDA 

data. The Bureau believes that AUS 

results are not included in any public 

records or found in other datasets 

available to the public and that an 

adversary would face substantial 

difficulty attempting to re-identify an 

applicant or borrower by using AUS 

result to match HMDA records to other 

identified records. 

The Bureau has considered whether 

modifications to the public loan-level 

HMDA data other than the exclusion of 

AUS result would appropriately reduce 

the privacy risks created by the 

disclosure of the AUS result while 

maintaining some utility for HMDA’s 

purposes. However, the Bureau does not 

believe that AUS result can be modified 

in a manner that appropriately protects 

privacy and that also preserves utility. 

AUS result is a categorical field, as 

opposed to a numerical one, and thus 

cannot be binned or rounded. The 

Bureau believes at this time that, under 

the balancing test, excluding AUS result 

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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal. 

Free-Form Text Fields 

The 2015 HMDA Final Rule requires 

financial institutions to use free-form 

text fields to report certain data. For 

example, the 2015 HMDA Final Rule 

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.159 A 

financial institution will submit a code 

from a specified list to indicate the 

name and version of the scoring model 

used to generate each credit score 

reported.160 If the name and version of 

the scoring model used to generate a 

credit score is not listed, the financial 

institution will submit the code for 

‘‘other credit scoring model’’ and will 

report in a free-form text field the name 

and version of the scoring model 

used.161 Free-form text fields may also 

be used to report race,162 ethnicity,163

reason for denial,164 and AUS system 

name.165 The maximum number of 

characters for the AUS system name 

free-form text field and for the reason 

for denial free-form text field, including 

spaces, is 255; the maximum number of 

characters including spaces for all other 

free-form text fields is 100. Free-form 

text fields used to report race and 

ethnicity will be completed by 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44610 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

166Appendix B, paragraph 8 (effective Jan. 1, 

2018). 

167 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9). 

168 12 CFR 1003.4(a)(9)(ii) (effective Jan. 1, 2018); 

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

169For more information concerning these data, 

including the sources of these data, see Federal 

Financial Institutions Examination Council, ‘‘FFIEC 

Census and Demographic Data,’’ https://

www.ffiec.gov/censusproducts.htm (last visited Mar. 

20, 2017). 

170HMDA section 304(j)(1). This requirement is 

implemented in 12 CFR 1003.5(c), which requires 

that each financial institution make available to the 

public its modified loan/application register, 

sometimes referred to as a ‘‘modified LAR.’’ 

171HMDA section 304(j)(5). 

172 12 CFR 1003.5(c) (effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

173With respect to data that is submitted late, the 

Bureau intends to make available a modified loan/ 

application register by March 31 whenever possible, 

or as soon thereafter as is feasible. 

174As noted above, HMDA data is reported by 

March 1 of the year following the calendar year for 

which the information was compiled, leaving the 

Bureau as little as 30 days to prepare each financial 

institution’s modified loan/application register. The 

Bureau is exploring how best to provide the public 

with information concerning whether a loan is 

above the applicable GSE conforming loan limit. 

175 12 U.S.C. 2803(k); 12 CFR 1003.5(b)(1) 

(effective Jan. 1, 2018). 

176 12 U.S.C. 2809(a); 12 CFR 1003.5(f) (effective 

Jan. 1, 2018). 

applicants; 166 all other free-form text 

fields will be completed by the financial 

institution. 

Free-form text fields will allow the 

reporting of any information, including 

information that creates risks to 

applicant and borrower privacy. Given 

the volume of HMDA data reported each 

year, it will not be feasible for the 

Bureau to review the contents of each 

free-form text field submitted before 

disclosing the loan-level HMDA data to 

the public. The Bureau believes at this 

time that, under the balancing test, 

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. 

The Bureau seeks comment on this 

proposal. 

IV. Other Considerations Related to 

Disclosure 

A. Additional Data 

Current Regulation C requires 

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.167 To reduce burden on 

financial institutions, the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule eliminates from this 

provision the requirement to report the 

MSA or Metropolitan Division in which 

the property is located.168 The Bureau 

proposes to identify for each loan and 

application subject to this provision the 

MSA or Metropolitan Division in which 

the property securing or proposed to 

secure the loan is located and to include 

this information in the loan-level 

HMDA data disclosed to the public so 

that the utility of these currently 

disclosed data fields are preserved. The 

Bureau seeks comment on this proposal. 

The FFIEC currently includes with 

the agencies’ loan-level release the 

following census and income data: 

Population (total population in tract); 

Minority Population Percent (percentage 

of minority population to total 

population for tract, carried to two 

decimal places); FFIEC Median Family 

Income (FFIEC Median family income 

in dollars for the MSA/MD in which the 

tract is located (adjusted annually by 

FFIEC)); 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); Number 

of Owner Occupied Units (number of 

dwellings, including individual 

condominiums, that are lived in by the 

owner); and Number of 1- to 4-Family 

units (dwellings that are built to house 

fewer than five families).169 These data 

are intended to provide additional 

context to the reported HMDA data. The 

Bureau proposes to continue to include 

these data in the loan-level HMDA data 

disclosed to the public. The Bureau 

seeks comment on this proposal. 

The FFIEC also currently includes 

with the agencies’ loan-level release 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 

believes that this indicator is no longer 

useful to analysis of the HMDA data and 

proposes to no longer include the 

application date indicator in the loanlevel HMDA data disclosed to the 

public. The Bureau seeks comment on 

this proposal. 

B. The Modified LAR and the Agencies’ 

Loan-Level Release 

As discussed above, HMDA requires 

that financial institutions make 

available to the public, upon request, 

‘‘loan application register information’’ 

as defined by the Bureau and in the 

form required under regulations 

prescribed by the Bureau.170 This 

information must be made available as 

early as March 31 following the 

calendar year for which the information 

was compiled.171 In addition to the 

loan-level data made available by each 

financial institution on its modified 

loan/application register, the FFIEC 

currently makes available in September 

of each year the agencies’ loan-level 

release, which is a loan-level dataset 

containing all reported HMDA data for 

the preceding calendar year. 

Under the 2015 HMDA Final Rule, 

financial institutions will no longer be 

required to provide their modified loan/ 

application registers directly to the 

public and will be required instead to 

provide a notice advising members of 

the public seeking their data that it may 

be obtained on the Bureau’s Web site.172

By March 31 following the calendar year 

for which the data was compiled, the 

Bureau will make available on the 

Bureau’s Web site a modified loan/ 

application register for each financial 

institution that timely submits its 

HMDA data.173 With respect to data 

compiled in 2018 or later, this proposed 

Policy Guidance describes the 

modifications the Bureau proposes to 

apply to each financial institution’s 

modified loan/application register as 

well as to the agencies’ loan-level 

release, with the possible exception of 

modifications to reflect whether the 

loan amount is above the applicable 

GSE conforming loan limit, which may 

be released later than March 31.174

C. Aggregate and Disclosure Reports 

HMDA and Regulation C require the 

FFIEC to make available a disclosure 

statement for each financial institution 

each year.175 The statute and regulation 

also require the FFIEC to compile 

aggregate data by census tract for all 

financial institutions reporting under 

HMDA and to produce tables indicating 

aggregate lending patterns for various 

categories of census tracts grouped 

according to location, age of housing 

stock, income level, and racial 

characteristics.176 The FFIEC currently 

makes these aggregate data products 

available in September of each year 

reflecting HMDA data reported for the 

preceding calendar year. 

The FFIEC, the Bureau, and the other 

agencies continue to evaluate options 

for making available the disclosure 

statements and aggregate data required 

by HMDA and the 2015 HMDA Final 

Rule. The Bureau may also consider 

making available other data products to 

enhance understanding of the HMDA 

data and otherwise further the goals of 

the statute. 

D. Restricted Access Program 

As indicated in the supplementary 

information to the 2014 HMDA 

Proposed Rule and the 2015 HMDA 

Final Rule, the Bureau believes that 

HMDA’s public disclosure purposes 

may be furthered by allowing academics 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 44611 

177 5 U.S.C. 603(a), 604(a). 

178 12 U.S.C. 2801(b). 

179 54 FR 51356, 51357 (Dec. 15, 1989) (codified 

at 12 CFR 1003.1(b)(1)) (Bureau’s post-Dodd-Frank 

Act Regulation C). 

180 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 

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

1980, 2035–38, 2097–101 (2010). 

181These 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—and the 

Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Together with the Bureau, these agencies are 

referred to herein as ‘‘the agencies.’’ 

182Section 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.’’ 

183 80 FR 66128 (Oct. 28, 2015); see also 80 FR 

69567 (Nov. 10, 2015) (making technical 

corrections). 

184Certain 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). 

185 80 FR 66128, 66134 (Oct. 28, 2015). 

and industry and community 

researchers to access the unmodified 

HMDA dataset through a restricted 

access program, for research purposes. 

The Bureau continues 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. 

V. Regulatory Requirements 

The Bureau concludes that the 

proposed Policy Guidance on Disclosure 

of Loan-Level HMDA Data is a nonbinding general statement of policy and/ 

or a rule of agency organization, 

procedure, or practice exempt from 

notice and comment rulemaking 

requirements under the Administrative 

Procedure Act pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 

553(b). Notwithstanding this 

conclusion, the Bureau invites public 

comment on the proposed Policy 

Guidance. Because no notice of 

proposed rulemaking is required, the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act does not 

require an initial or final regulatory 

flexibility analysis.177 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 has 

determined that this proposed 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 

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 

(Attention: PRA Office), 1700 G Street 

NW., Washington, DC 20552, or by 

email to CFPB_Public_PRA@cfpb.gov. 

VI. Proposed Policy Guidance on 

Disclosure of Loan-Level HMDA Data 

The text of the proposed 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.178 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.179

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

Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act).180

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 

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),181 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].’’ 182

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.183 Most provisions of the 2015 

HMDA Final Rule go into effect on 

January 1, 2018,184 and apply to data 

financial institutions will collect 

beginning in 2018 and will 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 in order 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 the 

statutory 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.185

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 

loan-level 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 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
44612 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 184 / Monday, September 25, 2017 / Notices 

the Bureau intends to apply to the data. 

The Bureau intends to continue to 

monitor developments affecting the 

application of the balancing test to the 

HMDA data and may reconsider 

whether and how to modify the HMDA 

data, based on the application of the 

balancing test, in order to ensure the 

appropriate protection of applicant and 

borrower privacy in light of HMDA’s 

purposes. This Policy Guidance is nonbinding in part because flexibility to 

revise the modifications to be applied to 

the public loan-level HMDA data is 

necessary to maintain a proper 

balancing of the privacy risks and 

benefits of disclosure. 

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 Rule as 

follows: 

1. Except as provided in paragraphs 2 

through 6 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); 

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 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 40 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 

40 percent and less than 50 percent. 

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. 

Dated: September 8, 2017. 

Richard Cordray, 

Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection. 

[FR Doc. 2017–20409 Filed 9–22–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4810–AM–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[FRL–9966–90–ORD] 

Ambient Air Monitoring Reference and 

Equivalent Methods: Designation of 

Three New Reference Methods 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that 

the Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) has designated three new 

reference methods for measuring 

concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, and 

PM10-2.5 in the ambient air. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Robert Vanderpool, Exposure Methods 

and Measurement Division (MD–D205– 

03), National Exposure Research 

Laboratory, U.S. EPA, Research Triangle 

Park, North Carolina 27711. Phone: 

919–541–7877. Email: 

Vanderpool.Robert@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

accordance with regulations at 40 CFR 

part 53, the EPA evaluates various 

methods for monitoring the 

concentrations of those ambient air 

pollutants for which EPA has 

established National Ambient Air 

Quality Standards (NAAQSs) as set 

forth in 40 CFR part 50. Monitoring 

methods that are determined to meet 

specific requirements for adequacy are 

designated by the EPA as either 

reference methods or equivalent 

methods (as applicable), thereby 

permitting their use under 40 CFR part 

58 by States and other agencies for 

determining compliance with the 

NAAQSs. 

The EPA hereby announces the 

designation of three new reference 

methods for measuring concentrations 

of PM2.5, PM10, and PM10-2.5 in the 

ambient air. These designations are 

made under the provisions of 40 CFR 

part 53, as amended on August 31, 2011 

(76 FR 54326- 54341). 

The new reference method for PM2.5

is a manual monitoring method based 

on a specific PM2.5 sampler and is 

identified as follows: 

RFPS–0717–245, ‘‘Met One 

Instruments, Inc. E–SEQ–FRM,’’ 

sequential sampler configured for multievent filter sampling of ambient 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES