On 9/21/2020, the Federal Reserve Board issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and invited public comment on an approach to modernize CRA regulations. The ANPR is looking for feedback on “ways to evaluate how banks meet the needs of low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities and address inequities in credit access.” This rule, of course, comes a few months after the OCC issued a final rule that requires financial institutions regulated by the OCC to comply with by October 1, 2020, January 1, 2023, or January 1, 2024. Therefore, it appears that this ANPR would only apply to financial institutions regulated by the Federal Reserve. The FDIC has not yet announced their intentions for CRA revisions, though they had originally issued the the proposal jointly with the OCC, but have not yet finalized the same rule as the OCC.

On 6/24/2020, the FFIEC announced the release of distressed or underserved nonmetropolitan middle-income geographies. As explained in the release, these are geographic areas where revitalization or stabilization activities are eligible to receive Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) consideration under the community development definition.

On 6/17/2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued Bulletin 2020-61 to inform national banks about how the recently issued “host state loan-to-deposit ratios” are used to determine compliance with laws relating to Interstate Banking and branching efficiency. Specifically, the OCC’s CRA regulation (12 CFR 25, subpart E") includes specific tests for determining whether an interstate bank is lending appropriately in host states where it has branches. The OCC’s new bulletin explains how national banks can use this data.

On February 19, 2020, the OCC and FDIC extended the public comment period for proposed changes to the regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) until April 8, 2020. The CRA proposal was released on December 12, 2019, in attempts to modernize the regulations under the CRA. The proposed regulations are intended to…

The long awaited CRA proposal was published in the Federal Register on January 9, 2020, meaning that comments on the proposed rule are due on March 9, 2020. This joint proposal between the OCC and FDIC did not include the support of the Federal Reserve, who currently have a slightly different take on how CRA regulations should be revised (according to comments by Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard on January 8, 2020). As we have explained before, this would be the first substantial update to the rules in nearly 25 years if the rule is finalized. According to the release, the proposed rules are intended to do a number of things including:

As is the case each year, the regulatory agencies have adjusted the asset size threshold under the Community Reinvestment Act for 2020. The “small institution” asset threshold has increased from 1.284 billion to 1.305 billion, while the “intermediate small institution” asset threshold has increased from 321 million in 2019 to 326 million in 2020.

On December 12, 2019, the FDIC and OCC announced a long-awaited proposal to modernize the regulations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). If finalized as proposed, this would be the first substantial update to the rules in nearly 25 years. According to the release, the proposed rules are intended to do a number of things including…