How Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations can promote more lending, investment, and services where they are needed most was discussed by the comptroller of the currency in New York as he continued his tour of “CRA neighborhoods,” his agency stated in a release issued Wednesday.
Joseph Otting, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), was hosted by the Association of Neighborhood & Housing Development, according to the release. The OCC said that more than 50 community advocates, community development professionals, civil rights organizations, and bankers joined Otting and senior agency staff during the visit. (No date was reported, though a photo was posted by the OCC Wednesday on Twitter, with a message about a visit to Queens.)
“I am encouraged by this discussion and the half dozen others we have had this summer with hundreds of stakeholders about CRA. The conversations confirm broad support for making CRA work better for everyone, for clarifying what activity counts for CRA, updating where it counts, evaluating CRA performance in a more transparent way, and making reporting more timely and transparent,” Otting said in a statement.
The OCC has issued releases on Otting’s visits to four cities so far in this tour to discuss the anti-redlining CRA: Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, and New York, all of them in the eastern and southeastern U.S. Atlanta was the first noted, with that visit made Aug. 9.
The OCC, in its release, said the comptroller “will continue to meet with stakeholders and visit areas throughout the country to see CRA success stories firsthand and hear directly how regulators can make CRA work better for everyone while fulfilling its statutory purpose more effectively.”
The OCC issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking last year on possible updates to the CRA rules. No proposed rule has been issued. At the moment, any proposed rule is expected to be issued jointly by all three federal banking agencies, including OCC as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and Federal Reserve Board.