Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced a 30-day extension to the comment period for the proposed changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
Jesse Van Tol, CEO of NCRC, made the following statement:
“Although the OCC and FDIC did not extend the comment period the additional 60 days that NCRC, our members and members of Congress called for several weeks ago, the agencies still made a prudent choice with a 30-day extension. The proposed changes to CRA rules are significant, complex and lack both clarity and data. The additional time is essential for anyone impacted by the rules to assess the extent of the proposed changes and how their communities and businesses will be affected.
“I also hope the extension will give the OCC and FDIC the time they need to respond well before the comment period expires to our FOIA request for data that was referenced but missing from the proposal. This missing data is essential to understanding not only how the OCC determined its proposed changes, but also the likely outcomes of the changes. The extension isn’t helpful if the public remains in the dark about the government’s data and calculations, and it isn’t helpful if the public has no time to analyze and comment on that data.”
The proposed changes to CRA are applauing. As a former regulator who wrote CRA Performance Evaluations these proposed changes will make it easier for institiutions to not extend loans to low-and- moderate income areas, individuals (predominantly minority & small businesses) and underserved rural communities. These changes will essentially leave our most vulnerable citizens behind. If these rules go into effect we are turning the back the hand of time. There is a higher risk for discrimination that could occur.