In somewhat of a surprise turn of events, the OCC announced on 5/18/2021 that it plans to reconsider its June 2020 CRA rule. This backstep comes for a rule that was released only by the OCC as the FDIC and Federal Reserve did not participate in this final rule and had not come to a consensus on CRA reform - meaning the OCC was planning to implement a new CRA rule on their own, rather than jointly with the other agencies. Interestingly enough, the 5/18/21 announcement comes almost one year after prior OCC Comptroller Joseph Otting - who was the primary person pushing for CRA reform - issued the final rule, and then just hours later announced that he would be stepping down from the OCC.

On 1/29/2021, the OCC announced the availability of three things which apply to OCC-regulated institutions: the availability of the 2021 list of bank type determinations, the 2021 list of distressed and underserved areas, and the banking industry median hourly compensation value. This information applies to the OCC’s new CRA regulations that were published in the Federal Register on 6/5/2020.

On 12/17/2020, the FDIC and Federal Reserve Board jointly announced the annual adjustment to the asset-size thresholds used to define small bank and intermediate small bank under their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations. The definitions of small and intermediate small institutions regulated by the FDIC or Federal Reserve will change as follows:

• “Small bank” means an institution that, as of December 31 of either of the prior two calendar years, had assets of less than $1.322 billion.

• “Intermediate small bank” means a small institution with assets of at least $330 million as of December 31 of both of the prior two calendar years and less than $1.322 billion as of December 31 of either of the prior two calendar years.

On 11/24/2020, the OCC issued a proposed rulemaking on the Community Reinvestment Act’s (CRA) general performance standards. This proposal comes after the June 2020 final rule and provides the OCC’s planned approach to determine the CRA evaluation measure benchmarks, retail lending distribution test thresholds, and community development minimums under the general performance standards set forth in the 2020 final rule.

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: