Banking

Federal Reserve to Hold Public Hearings on HMDA Changes

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors announced in April that it will hold a series of public hearings on potential revisions to Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The act, signed into law in 1975, requires lending institutions to collect and report detailed public data about their lending activities.

A range of participating stakeholders
A number of interested parties including consumers, community and consumer organizations, mortgage lenders, and others will be invited to participate in the four hearings, which begin in July 2010.

The Board of Governors said the hearings will serve three objectives:

• the Board of Governors will gather information about a 2002 revision to Regulation C, which requires lenders to provide mortgage pricing data. The Board wants to find out if this data provided useful and accurate information about the mortgage market,
• the hearings will be an important source of information as the Board evaluates the need for additional data and other improvements to Regulation C, and
• the hearings will help spot emerging issues in the mortgage market that may require additional research.

Various types of statements accepted
The hearings will include panel discussions by invited speakers and a period for oral statements of five minutes or less. Interested parties may also submit written statements of any length for the record.

The first hearing will be on July 15 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, followed by August 5 at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, September 16 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and September 24 at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC.

The Board will update its Web site as more information about the public hearings becomes available.

May 19, 2010