Fair Housing Home Loan Data System

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Office of the Comptroller of the Currency</SUBAGY> <CFR>12 CFR Part 27</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID OCC-2025-0405]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1557-AF42</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fair Housing Home Loan Data System</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) invites public comment on a notice of proposed rulemaking (proposed rule) to rescind its Fair Housing Home Loan Data System regulation codified at 12 CFR part 27. The OCC has determined that the regulation is obsolete and largely duplicative of and inconsistent with other legal authorities that require national banks to collect and retain certain information on applications for home loans. Moreover, part 27 imposes asymmetrical data collection requirements on national banks compared to their other depository institution counterparts, and the data collected has limited utility. For these reasons, rescinding the regulation would eliminate the regulatory burden attributable to part 27 for national banks without having a material impact on the availability of data necessary for the OCC to conduct its fair housing-related supervisory activities. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before December 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Commenters are encouraged to submit comments through the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Please use the title “Fair Housing Home Loan Data System” to facilitate the organization and distribution of the comments. You may submit comments by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal—Regulations.gov:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://regulations.gov/.</E> Enter Docket ID “OCC-2025-0405” in the Search Box and click “Search.” Public comments can be submitted via the “Comment” box below the displayed document information or by clicking on the document title and then clicking the “Comment” box on the top-left side of the screen. For help with submitting effective comments, please click on “Commenter's Checklist.” For assistance with the <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> site, please call 1-866-498-2945 (toll free) Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. EST, or email <E T="03">regulationshelpdesk@gsa.gov.</E> • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Chief Counsel's Office, Attention: Comment Processing, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery/Courier:</E> 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> You must include “OCC” as the agency name and Docket ID “OCC-2025-0405” in your comment. In general, the OCC will enter all comments received into the docket and publish the comments on the <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> website without change, including any business or personal information provided such as name and address information, email addresses, or phone numbers. Comments received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record and subject to public disclosure. Do not include any information in your comment or supporting materials that you consider confidential or inappropriate for public disclosure. You may review comments and other related materials that pertain to this action by the following method: • <E T="03">Viewing Comments Electronically—Regulations.gov:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://regulations.gov/.</E> Enter Docket ID “OCC-2025-0405” in the Search Box and click “Search.” Click on the “Dockets” tab and then the document's title. After clicking the document's title, click the “Browse All Comments” tab. Comments can be viewed and filtered by clicking on the “Sort By” drop-down on the right side of the screen or the “Refine Comments Results” options on the left side of the screen. Supporting materials can be viewed by clicking on the “Browse Documents” tab. Click on the “Sort By” drop-down on the right side of the screen or the “Refine Results” options on the left side of the screen checking the “Supporting & Related Material” checkbox. For assistance with the <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> site, please call 1-866-498-2945 (toll free) Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. EST, or email <E T="03">regulationshelpdesk@gsa.gov.</E> The docket may be viewed after the close of the comment period in the same manner as during the comment period. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Emily Boyes, Counsel, (202) 649-5490; Sadia Chaudhary, Counsel, (202) 649-5122; Daniel Borman, Counsel, 202 649-6929; Chief Counsel's Office, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street SW, Washington, DC 20219. If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The OCC is proposing to rescind its Fair Housing Home Loan Data System regulation codified at 12 CFR part 27. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The OCC issued part 27 in 1979 to provide a basis for a more effective fair housing monitoring program for home loans. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The OCC's issuance of part 27 also assisted with implementation of certain parts of the settlement reached in <E T="03">National Urban League et al.,</E> v. <E T="03">Office of the Comptroller of the Currency et al.</E> <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Part 27 established recordkeeping requirements and a data collection system for monitoring national banks and any of their subsidiaries  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> (national banks)  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> for compliance with the Fair Housing Act  and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Specifically, part 27 requires national banks to (i) engage in quarterly recordkeeping of certain home loan data if the national bank is required to report loans under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> (HMDA reporters) or if the national bank is a non-HMDA reporter that receives 50 or more home loan  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> applications a year, as applicable;  <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> (ii) attempt to obtain all of the prescribed information for applications for home loans;  <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> (iii) maintain certain additional information in loan files;  <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> and (iv) collect certain information on a log, if the OCC orders the national bank to maintain a log of inquiries and applications. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  44 FR 63084 (Nov. 2, 1979) as amended at 49 FR 11825 (Mar. 28, 1984), 59 FR 26415 (May 20, 1994), 73 FR 22251 (Apr. 24, 2008). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  44 FR 63084 (Nov. 2, 1979). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See National Urban League, et al.</E> v. <E T="03">Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, et al.,</E> 78 FRD. 543, 544 (D.D.C. May 3, 1978); 44 FR 63084 (Nov. 2, 1979). The settlement agreement expressly provides that the terms expired in three years, and do not currently obligate the OCC to maintain part 27. <E T="03">See National Urban League, et al.</E> v. <E T="03">Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, et al.,</E> Settlement Agreement at 531, No. 76-0718 (D.D.C. Mar. 23, 1977). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  As originally promulgated, the regulation also applied to banks located in the District of Columbia. The OCC amended part 27 in 2008 to remove banks chartered in Washington, DC from the scope of the regulation since those entities are no longer national banks. <E T="03">See</E> 73 FR 22216, 22232 (Apr. 24, 2008). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The regulation defines the term “bank” as “a national bank and any subsidiaries of a national bank.” <E T="03">See</E> 12 CFR 27.2(c). However, this <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> uses the term “national bank” in place of the defined term “bank” to improve readability and distinguish the relevant data requirements applicable to national banks from those applicable to other types of depository institutions. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  42 U.S.C. 3601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  15 U.S.C. 1691 <E T="03">et seq.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  12 U.S.C. 2801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  A home loan, as defined in part 27, is “a real estate loan for the purchase, permanent financing for construction, or the refinancing of residential real property which the applicant intends to occupy as a principal residence.” 12 CFR 27.2(f). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  12 CFR 27.3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  12 CFR 27.3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>  12 CFR 27.5. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>  12 CFR 27.4. </FTNT> When part 27 was promulgated in 1979, the principal purpose of the regulation was to provide for the collection and retention of information necessary to establish a valid statistical analysis of national banks' home lending decisions without placing an undue burden upon the national banks subject to the rule. <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> At the time the rule was promulgated, the OCC stated that it would engage in reviews of the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory requirements. <SU>15</SU> <FTREF/> Recently, the OCC has undertaken such a review as part of its ongoing efforts to tailor bank supervision and regulation. <SU>16</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>14</SU>  44 FR 63084, 63085 (Nov. 2, 1979). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>15</SU>  44 FR 63084, 63085 (Nov. 2, 1979). Specifically, in response to comments that the OCC should include more data collection requirements under part 27, the agency explained its reasoning for limiting the data collection ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━