Community Reinvestment Act Update: Regulation Modernizations Finalized

On October 24, 2023, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System (Board), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) adopted a Final Rule amending regulations under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA). Among the stated goals underlying these changes are (1) to better serve the purpose of the CRA, (2) to modernize the regulations in response to changes in the banking industry, (3) to clarify and provide consistency and transparency in the application of the regulations, and (4) to better tailor standards to different bank sizes, business models, and geographies.

The major changes to the regulations include: (1) increased asset limits for each category of bank, (2) changes in evaluation metrics, and (3) the expansion of the geographic areas in which certain banks are evaluated beyond locations where a bank has a brick-and-mortar presence. These changes, for the most part, will take