Fed Schedules Public Hearings on HMDA Reporting

The Federal Reserve Board will hold four public hearings this summer to see if its Home Mortgage Disclosure Act regulations need to be updated. The hearings will start July 15 in Atlanta. The other hearings will be held Aug. 5 in San Francisco, Sept. 16 in Chicago and Sept. 24 in Washington. Most mortgage lenders are required to file HMDA reports that include information on one-to-four family loans they originate or purchase. About 8,400 lenders file annual HMDA reports that include information on approvals and rejections of mortgage applicants and their race, gender and income. Banking regulators use the information to detect discriminatory lending practices. The last major HMDA revisions came in 2002 with the government requiring mortgage bankers to disclose pricing data on subprime loans for the first time. One of the objectives of the hearing is to evaluate whether the pricing data "helped provide useful and accurate information about the mortgage market," the Fed said.