On Thursday, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the OCC issued a much-anticipated joint notice of proposed rulemaking to modernize regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act. The agencies proposed changes to how CRA activities qualify for consideration, where activities are considered and how they are evaluated.
Enacted in 1977, CRA’s last interagency revision was in 1995. In the proposal, the agencies identified five key goals of the proposal, including:
- Expanding access to credit, investment, and basic banking services in low-and-moderate-income communities.
- Adapting to technology changes in the banking industry by updating CRA assessment areas to include activities associated with online and mobile banking, branchless banking, and hybrid models.
- Providing greater clarity, consistency, and transparency in the application of the regulations.
- Tailoring CRA evaluations and data collection to bank size and type; and
- Maintaining a unified regulatory approach from all three regulatory agencies.
Bankers have urged regulators for several years to revamp CRA.
