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80 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CUNA: CPPB has 'Overstepped the Boundaries' with Expanded HMDA Rule e Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has expressed its displeasure with the Consumer Financial Protection Bu- reau (CFPB)'s expanded data point request under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) in a letter to the White House Of- fice of Management and Budget (OMB). Responding to last week's public request from the CFPB for comment on the resub- mission of mortgage-lending data reported under HMDA, CUNA was highly critical of the Bureau in the letter, CUNA said that the CFPB "overstepped the boundaries" and was "ignoring what Congress chose to allow for expressly" by requiring covered financial institutions to report what CUNA called a "staggering 48 data fields" instead of the 17 es- tablished by Dodd-Frank. CUNA also stated that the Bureau "fell well short" of certain Dodd-Frank mandates with regards to collect- ing HMDA data. e CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. HMDA was enacted in 1975 and required lenders to report information about their home loan applications or originations. e public and regulators take this information and use it to monitor whether financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communi- ties, to assist in distributing public-sector investment so as to attract private investment to areas where it is needed, and to identify pos- sible discriminatory lending patterns. e CFPB stated that the recent finaliza- tion of the rule in October 2015 was done "to improve information reported about the residential mortgage market" and added more data points for financial institutions. CUNA contended in the letter to the OMB that HMDA data, both under the old regime and the new regime, cannot establish discrimination because it contains only "out- come data" and does not contain any informa- tion on how those outcomes were determined. For example, HMDA data does not contain an applicant's credit or employment history or as- sets, nor does it contain other pricing elements, such as market factors or supply and demand. CUNA did note in the letter that the HMDA data may indicate certain trends that warrant investigation by regulatory agencies. e letter noted that on credit unions specifically, HMDA data does not contain the individual field of membership restrictions that can affect lending decisions. "It is precisely these limitations on the data which illuminate why the data collection is thus overbroad and not reasonably tailored to allowing the CFPB to accomplish its oversight function," the letter stated. "Since the data cannot establish discrimination, the CFPB has clearly overstepped the boundaries of what is necessary for it to accomplish its oversight function and protect the public." CUNA further states that the CFPB is au- thorized by the Dodd-Frank Act to collect only 17 data points as part of HMDA, but under the new rule it is now collecting 48 data points. "While Congress did authorize the CFPB to collect 'such other information as the Bureau may require,' it is unlikely this grant is an unbridled delegation to the CFPB to more than double the amount of express data points that Congress had indicated for the Bureau to collect," the letter stated. "To go beyond the list is essentially ignoring what Congress chose to allow for expressly. Although Congress did provide for the CFPB to collect other informa- tion, the CFPB went far beyond the Dodd- Frank specifically itemized data points and now requires a staggering 48 data fields to be collected by a covered financial institution." Dodd-Frank requires the CFPB to work with other banking regulatory agencies to determine which data points collected under HMDA will be made public. CUNA said in the letter the organization is concerned because the CFPB has not disclosed which HMDA data will be made public. "In the HMDA rulemaking, the CFPB fell well short of this mandate and only adopt- ed a 'balancing test' to balance the importance of releasing the data to accomplish HMDA's public disclosure purposes against the poten- tial harm to an applicant or borrower's privacy interest that may result from the release of the data without modification," the letter stated. "While the balancing test may be useful by the agency as a step in determining what should be made public, it does not inform the industry of what data points will actually be made public or in what format the data will be public." NEW YORK New York Fed: Expect a Boost in Household Formation in 2016 Speaking on the country's economic outlook and monetary policy at the Eco- nomic Leadership Forum in Somerset, New Jersey, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Bill Dudley said the U.S. economy has its strengths and weaknesses—but he expects household formation to receive a boost in 2016. "Housing starts are still well below the rate consistent with the nation's population growth rate, and the fundamentals of housing demand remain positive," Dudley said. "Rising employment is likely to boost the household formation rate and low mortgage interest rates should keep housing relatively affordable, despite the ongoing recovery in home prices." Dudley pointed to the moderate expan- sion of consumption and housing activity as strengths for the economy, while pointing to weak GDP growth in the fourth quarter as a negative—though the weak Q 4 GDP growth should be weighed against the evident strength of the labor market, he said. "I continue to expect that the economy will expand at a pace slightly above its long-term trend in 2016," Dudley said. "In other words, I anticipate sufficient economic strength to push the unemployment rate down a bit further and to more fully utilize the nation's labor resources." Inflation remains well below the Fed's 2 percent objective, primarily due to weaker energy prices and a stronger dollar's impact on non-energy import prices, according to Dudley—and the inflation outlook has "not changed much." e passage of the FY 2016 New York Todd Yovino Broker/Owner Island Advantage Realty, LLC Metropolitan New York and Long Island's Default Specialist for Over 27 Years Todd@iarny.com | 631-820-3400 www.islandadvantage.com In November, 2.4 percent of mortgage loans in Washington, D.C. were in active foreclosure. Only four states had higher foreclosure inventory rates, according to CoreLogic. KNOW THIS

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