08/31/2026
New CRA Proposed Rule Formally Published in Federal Register
On August 12, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), two of the three federal banking regulators, formally published in the Federal Register the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) that would change their current rules that implement the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA is a landmark federal law enacted in 1977 that requires banks to serve the communities in which they have a presence through lending, investment, and services. CRA drives the overwhelming majority of investments in the Housing Credit - around 80 percent of Housing Credit equity annually as of 2024. Notably, the Federal Reserve Board, the third federal banking regulator, is not currently participating in this process.
As covered in last month's ACTION newsletter, this proposed rule would revise the asset thresholds of different sizes of banks: it would (1) redefine small banks as those with assets under $1 billion, up from $412 million; (2) replace intermediate small banks with intermediate banks, defined as those with assets between $1 billion and $10 billion, instead of between $412 million and $1.649 billion; and (3) redefine large banks as those with assets greater than $10 billion, up from $1.649 billion.
ACTION is working on a series of tools for ACTION members to use in their CRA advocacy, including talking points and a template comment letter. Stay tuned for more information soon. In addition, ACTION intends to submit its own comment letter on behalf of Steering Committee members. Comments are due by Tuesday, October 13.
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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are proposing to amend their Community Reinvestment Act rules by making certain substantive, technical, and process-oriented changes to refocus on the statutory objective of encouraging banks...
