Bloomberg Law, February 22, 2022, Climate Risk Stumps Bank Regulators Updating Anti-Redlining Plan
Financial regulators updating anti-redlining rules face a conundrum: how to increase lending in lower-income neighborhoods prone to climate disasters while also getting banks to better account for climate risks.
But regulators are treading carefully as they look to modernize the CRA’s rules and possibly expand the types of climate projects that would count in assessments of bank performance.
There are ways to mitigate against potential tensions between climate risk and the CRA.
The simplest would be for banks to get CRA credit for focusing on “precovery” efforts before a disaster hits, said Jesse Van Tol, the president and CEO of NCRC.
