Financial Services Alert

• Agencies Find Privacy Rules Permit Lender to Include Borrower’s Loan Number on Recorded Documents

The OCC, FRB, FDIC, OTS, NCUA and FTC (the "Agencies") issued a joint letter concluding that Title V of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (the "GLBA"), which contains the privacy restrictions, permits an originating lender to include the borrower’s loan account number on mortgages, deeds of trust and other mortgage loan documents recorded in public records. The Agencies found that the presence of the account number on the mortgage loan document facilitates the appropriate handling and filing of the document, and its disclosure therefore falls under a privacy exemption permitting disclosures that are necessary to effect, administer or enforce the transaction. The Agencies also concluded that including loan numbers on recorded documents does not violate the provision of the GLBA that prohibits the disclosure of account numbers to nonaffiliated third parties for use