The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is ordering Nationstar, owner of real estate platform Xome, to pay a $1.75 million civil penalty for failure to report accurate data on its loan transactions between 2012 and 2014, in violation of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).
The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act was originally enacted by Congress in 1975 and “requires many financial institutions to maintain, report, and publicly disclose information about mortgages,” according to consumerfinance.gov.
CFPB reports that “these public data are important because they help show whether lenders are serving the housing needs of their communities; they give public officials information that helps them make decisions and policies; and they shed light on lending patterns that could be discriminatory.”
This is the largest penalty to date to result from an HMDA violation, CFPB noted.
In announcing the settlement, Nationstar released a statement today:
“The settlement does not reflect any wrong-doing impacting customers or fair lending; but rather, technical data issues that we have worked tirelessly to resolve through significant investments,” the company said.
“Nationstar understands how accurate HMDA data is critical to fair lending, and we regret the mistakes that led to the reporting errors. These data issues are not reflective of our customer and compliance-driven business practices, and we remain committed to treating every applicant fairly and responsibly.”
Nationstar also noted that it has “proactively made substantial investments in new staff, training and technology to enhance all of our HMDA-related processes and controls” and “will continue to foster a culture of compliance, ethics and innovation.”