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Earlier today, The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), issued a final rule to strengthen and modernize regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA is designed to ensure federally insured banks meet the credit needs of the communities in which they do business, especially low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities.  The press release announcing the CRA Modernization’s final rule emphasizes that […]

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is undergoing significant changes and the final interagency ruling on CRA Modernization is expected to come down sooner rather than later. As CEO, understanding these changes and their implications is crucial for your bank’s compliance success.  The Community Reinvestment Act has long played a vital role in promoting community development and fair lending, and the new regulations will reshape how your institution approaches its community commitments. Here are ten  things […]

With the introduction of Section 1071’s final rule earlier this year and the anticipation of the interagency update to CRA, compliance departments across the country are grappling with the regulatory frameworks that support fair lending and consumer protection. Here’s an overview of how these three components, Section 1071, CRA, and Fair Lending, relate to each other: Section 1071 Data Collection Through the collection and reporting of data related to lending practices, specifically for small businesses […]

In order to better align with how the nation and the banking industry have changed, on May 5th 2022 the federal bank regulatory agencies overhauled the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and jointly issued a proposal to strengthen and modernize regulations implementing the CRA. During the comment period on the 619-page proposal, which ended August 5th, 2022, the agencies received 567 responses and the industry’s reactions were both positive and negative. Considering that it has been […]

On December 19, 2022, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the 2023 updated asset-size thresholds used to define “small bank” and “intermediate small bank” under their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. Annual adjustments to these asset-size thresholds are based on the average change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which is a measure of inflation. As a result of the 8.60 percent increase […]