InfoBytes Blog
Agencies issue final rule to modernize Community Reinvestment Act regulations
On October 24, the Fed, FDIC, and OCC issued an interagency announcement regarding the modernization of their rules under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law enacted in 1977 to encourage banks to help meet the credit needs of their communities, especially low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods, in a safe and sound manner. The new rule overhauls the existing regulatory scheme that was first implemented in the mid-1990s.
For banks with assets of at least $2 billion (Large Banks), the final rule adds a new category of assessment area to the existing facility based assessment area (FBAA). Large Banks that do more than 20 percent of their CRA-related lending outside their FBAAs will have that lending evaluated in retail lending assessment areas, i.e., MSAs or states where it originated at least 150 closed-end home mortgage loans or 400 small business loans in both of the previous two years. All Large Banks will be subject to two new lending and two new community development tests, with lending and community development activities each counting for half a bank’s overall CRA rating. Banks with assets between $600 million and $2 billion will be subject to a new lending test. Large Banks with assets greater than $10 billion will also have special reporting requirements.
Additionally, the rule (i) implements a standardized scoring system for performance ratings; (ii) revises community development definitions and creates a list of community development activities eligible for CRA consideration, regardless of location; (iii) permits regulators to evaluate “impact and responsiveness factors” of community development activities; (iii) continues to make strategic plans available as an alternative option for evaluation; (iv) revises the definition of limited purpose bank so that it includes both existing limited purpose and wholesale banks and subjects those banks to a new community development financing test; and (v) considers online banking in the bank’s evaluations.
Most of the rule’s requirements will be effective January 1, 2026. The remaining requirements, including the data reporting requirements, will apply on January 1, 2027.