Changes by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rules would be yet another layer of expense and burden on credit unions already struggling to meet a suffocating overall compliance burden, the Credit Union National Association warns in its most recent comment letter.

CUNA urges the CFPB to use a surgeon’s precision in meeting Dodd-Frank Act requirements to change HMDA–and go no further than the act mandates. CUNA also charged the CFPB with doing all it can to exempt credit unions from as many provisions of the proposal as is permissible.

The CFPB unveiled HMDA revisions in July–changes it said are intended to improve the information reported about the residential mortgage market under HMDA.

The proposal also is meant to simplify the reporting process for credit unions and other financial institutions. However, by the CFPB’s own estimates, the changes would represent a compliance burden of 4.7 million hours annually for all regulated entities required to report under HMDA.

CUNA strongly urges the bureau to increase a proposed threshold that would exempt a depository institution from reporting HMDA data if it originates fewer than 25 closed-end mortgage loans in the year–which would include closed-end, reverse mortgages.

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