Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)

The Federal Reserve will hold an open board meeting at 10 a.m. ET on September 21 to discuss a potential Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) reform.

The Urban Institute argues that the new CRA regulations suffer from four big problems: (1) There is no evidence of the impact of the new regulations; (2) The primary metric used for assessing CRA compliance neglects community needs; (3) The regulations create a limited and unforgiving test on retail and community development lending, with limited community coverage; and (4) Public data will be lost while bank reporting burdens will increase.

The House of Representatives voted along party lines to pass a resolution of disapproval to nullify the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s new rule on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The Congressional Review Act of 1996 gives Congress the power to rescind administration rules within 60 calendar days. The bill (H.J. Res 90) would need to be passed by the Senate (with a simple majority) and be signed by the President, both of which seem unlikely to happen.

Today the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its final rule on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Regulations and a non-exhaustive list of CRA activities. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) declined to join today’s final rule saying in a statement, “While the FDIC strongly supports the efforts to make the CRA rules clearer, more transparent, and less subjective, the agency is not prepared to finalize the CRA proposal at this time.

The Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting released a statement a day after the comment period closed on OCC and FDIC’s joint CRA proposed rule, stated the two U.S. banking regulators will consider the submitted comments in working toward issuing a final rule during the first half of this year.

NH&RA submitted comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) proposed rule on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. Comments can be submitted through 11:59 pm ET.

Last week the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released a proposed rule that would modernize the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Regulations. The proposal would overhaul CRA assessment boundaries, criteria for eligible CRA activities, and how banks are scored overall for their performance.