In the News

American Banker, May 6, 2022, Caught between bankers and activists, can the CRA reform proposal make everyone happy? Federal bank regulators moved forward on their major rewrite of the Community Reinvestment Act to wide applause from unusual bedfellows: banking trade organizations and community groups. Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said […]

HBCU Legends, May 7, 2022, 2022 Wells Fargo Championship Provides HBCU Golfers PGA Tour, Pro-Am Opportunities HBCU golfers and area minority kids participated in a four-day event at The Wells Fargo Championship at TPC Potomac from May 2-8. The financial institution sponsored the program to expose HBCU students and golfers to a PGA Tour event

Banking Dive, May 5, 2022, Fed, OCC, FDIC issue revamped CRA proposal The Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) proposed a raft of updates Thursday to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 law requiring banks to detail how they lend in low-income areas. The proposal wouldn’t

The Daily Californian, May 6, 2022, ‘Exclusionary and racist’: History of housing, gentrification in Berkeley Due to redlining and restrictive covenants, Black people have been prevented from receiving mortgages or loans, which has contributed to a low rate of Black home ownership today, as reported by Business Insider. Moreover, redlined areas — which are majority people

Bloomberg Law, May 5, 2022, Biden’s Bank Regulators Overhaul Low-Income Lending Rules (2) Top U.S. banking regulators unveiled an update to anti-redlining rules after scrapping Trump-era rules that were criticized for giving priority to large-scale projects over targeted investments to low-income areas. The proposal would make CRA evaluations more rigorous with new performance metrics. It

AP News, May 5, 2022, Anti-discriminatory bank law getting update for modern era The three major U.S. banking regulators said Thursday they a plan to rewrite much of the outdated regulations tied to a decades-old banking law designed to encourage lending to the poor and racial minorities in the areas where banks have branches. “It

HousingWire, May 5, 2022, Ready or not, CRA modernization is at the door Banks could receive many more failing grades from their regulators under a recently proposed overhaul of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The agencies proposed expanding the granularity of grades assigned to all banks, distinguishing between “low satisfactory” and “high satisfactory,” something that

Marketplace, May 5, 2022, Banking law rooted in civil rights era gets a 21st century update Online banks can offer mortgages or checking accounts anywhere in the country, but legally they only have to invest in areas where they have a physical presence. The rules proposed Thursday could change that, according to Jesse Van Tol,

The Mississippi Link, May 4, 2022, Top US regulators proposed overhauling how banks lend hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lower-income communities, the first major revamp to the standards in more than two decades as lenders increasingly offer financial services online Thursday’s awards luncheon keynote was Kevin Davenport, senior advisor, Campaign and Coalition, National

The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2022, Fed, Biden Administration Float New Lending Rules for Lower-Income Areas Top U.S. regulators proposed overhauling how banks lend hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lower-income communities, the first major revamp to the standards in more than two decades as lenders increasingly offer financial services online. Consumer advocates

CU Today, May 3, 2022, How Can Billions be Saved in ‘Junk Fees?’ Consumer Groups Offer an Extensive List Responding to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) call for public input on “how to save Americans billions in junk fees charged by financial companies,” a half-dozen leading consumer advocacy organizations submitted an extensive comment letter detailing junk

New Haven Biz, May 2, 2022, Space Rethink: Chelsea Groton Bank reinvents branches, hosts classes to attract in-person visits, boost business Between 2008 and 2020, more than 13,000 bank branches closed across the United States, or about 14% of branches, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, based in Washington, D.C. In Connecticut, banks closed

Your Stock Guide, May 1, 2022, The History of Lending Discrimination Laws today protect borrowers from discriminatory lending practices, but that wasn’t always the case. For decades U.S. banks denied mortgages to Black families—and those belonging to other racial and ethnic minority groups—who lived in certain areas “redlined” by a federal government agency called the Home Owners’

American Banker, April 27, 2022, New York Community and Flagstar delay merger, shift regulatory strategy New York Community Bancorp and Flagstar Bancorp are extending the deadline for their merger until late October and have decided the combined entity would be a national — not a state-chartered — bank. The change in strategy comes three months

NAFCU, April 26, 2022, Berger: Big banks have abandoned underserved communities In a new op-ed for American Banker, NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger calls out the soaring closure rate of big bank branches and its disproportionate impact on underserved, rural communities, while simultaneously hastening the formation of banking deserts. Recognizing the toll the pandemic took on