“This new advance notice of proposed rulemaking appears to ask the kinds of questions that you might ask if you were trying to water down a rule,” says Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes fair practices in lending and housing. “Are there loopholes that should be provided? Is the rule burdensome?”

“By eliminating affordable housing goals from the conventional mortgage market, lenders can choose to loan only to the well-heeled rich and ignore everybody still working their way up the economic ladder,”- Jesse Van Tol on Fannie, Freddie reform plan.

Jesse Van Tol, the CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said he’s worried that Otting appears to be trying to make it easier for banks to meet CRA requirements.

“This is purportedly a way to reduce burden. However, because the data points covered by the rule are already collected by lenders, the burden associated with the rule is minimal,” according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition letter.

“This is purportedly a way to reduce burden. However, because the data points covered by the rule are already collected by lenders, the burden associated with the rule is minimal,” according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition letter.

“We are concerned about this trend throughout the financial services industry,” said Stella Adams, Chief of Equity and Inclusion at National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an organization that works to promote diversity in banking, housing and business. “Many minority borrowers are looking for trusted financial advisors that reflect the diversity of the marketplace. A recent report from the GAO shows that the industry is underperforming based upon the talent available in the workforce.”

Under the new law, smaller banks with fewer than 500 closed-end loans or open-end credit lines do not have to report the additional data fields required by Dodd-Frank. The banks still collect the data, according to a letter sent to Congress by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, but are not required to report it.

In my neighborhood in the Philadelphia suburbs, there are financial institutions everywhere, of all kinds—global conglomerates, credit unions, community banks, and much else. Combining census data from 2010 and this useful tool from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, my ZIP code has one physical bank branch for roughly every 1,500 people.

A new study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) finds the same neighborhoods that were labeled “hazardous zones” and “redlined” by the government-sponsored Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s are the ones most persistently suffering today from inequality and lack of investment.

Most Americans who acquired the first home in their lineage would not have been successful if the rules today applied to them then. A new OpEd from NCRC’s John Taylor.