On July 31, 2026, the OCC and FDIC issued a joint proposal to amend parts of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The proposed changes are intended to better align the regulations with the statutory mandate, help ensure community development activities benefit their intended communities, reduce burden particularly for community banks, and provide greater clarity on how banks can receive CRA consideration.
The agencies’ proposed CRA rules would largely preserve the regulatory framework that has been in place since 1995 while making several substantive, technical, and procedural changes. The proposal follows the agencies’ 2023 CRA final rules. Key elements of the proposal include:
Greater focus on lending. The proposed framework would place greater emphasis on lending activities when evaluating banks under the CRA.
Community development grants and donations. The agencies seek to ensure that community development grants and donations benefit the communities they are intended to serve, rather than being diverted to unrelated activities or excessive operating expenses.
Narrower focus on retail banking services. The proposal would limit the retail banking services considered under the CRA primarily to credit services, excluding deposit services from the evaluation.
Relief for smaller banks. Banks with $10 billion or less in assets would not be subject to CRA data collection, maintenance, and reporting requirements and would receive greater flexibility in supervision.
Simplified CRA requirements. The proposal would streamline certain requirements for banks of all sizes.
Greater clarity and transparency. The agencies also aim to make CRA evaluations more clear, transparent, and objective, providing banks with greater certainty about how their CRA performance will be assessed.
Read the Agencies’ joint press release here.
A copy of the proposed rule can be found here.