OCC Scraps Redundant Loan Data Rules to Ease Bank Burdens

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued final rules Tuesday (March 3) rescinding its Fair Housing Home Loan Data System regulation and simplifying licensing requirements for corporate activities and transactions involving community banks.

The agency announced these final rules in a Tuesday press release, saying it aims to reduce the regulatory burden on community banks.

By rescinding the Fair Housing Home Loan Data System regulation, one final rule removes data collection requirements that were obsolete and largely duplicative, according to the release. The final rule eliminates this regulatory burden from the national banks to which the requirements applied, without impacting the availability of data necessary for conducting fair housing-related supervisory activities, the agency said.

The other final rule announced Tuesday broadens eligibility for expedited or reduced filing procedures to community banks, reducing the burden related to corporate activities and transactions by community banks, the OCC said in the release.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould said in the release that over the last couple of decades, the number of community banks has been halved by regulatory burdens and a “one-size-fits-all supervisory framework.”

“As Comptroller, I’ve prioritized addressing the challenges of community banks by streamlining regulation and tailoring supervision,” Gould said. “Today’s actions execute on meaningful reforms as we continue working to help these institutions best serve the American people on a level playing field.”

The OCC proposed these changes in October 2025, saying that reducing the regulatory burden for community banks would promote economic growth. The agency added that these moves would precede broader reforms for the industry.

In December 2025, Gould said the agency planned to continue its regulatory reforms in 2026. The OCC’s agenda includes reforms to liquidity risk management, Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) compliance and community bank regulation, he said in remarks delivered at a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

“Taken together, these actions represent an initial, but not sufficient, effort to undo discretionary regulatory and supervisory policy choices made after the 2008 crisis that eroded effective supervision and threatened the relevance of the banking system,” Gould said at the time.