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The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) is the law that provides a framework for identifying the sources of discrimination in lending practices. It requires financial institutions to maintain, report, and publicly disclose data about home mortgage applications. This data includes information about the applicant's race, ethnicity, sex, and the disposition of the application. By aggregating and analyzing this information, regulators, researchers, and consumer advocacy groups can identify patterns of discrimination in lending.

HMDA is specifically designed to highlight disparities in lending practices and to ensure transparency within the housing and mortgage markets. This data can serve as an essential tool for enforcing fair lending laws and for informing policymakers about trends that may indicate underlying issues related to discrimination.

Other laws, while important in the context of lending and consumer protection, do not focus specifically on the identification of discriminatory practices in lending the way HMDA does. For example, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) prohibits discrimination in lending but does not provide a structured method for gathering and analyzing data on lending practices across populations.