Next City, November 15th, 2017: Three U.S. Banks Make $20 Billion Community Reinvestment Promise
“The negotiations were enabled by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 law that says banks have a “continuing and affirmative obligation to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered.” While the law does not require banks to enter into agreements with local organizations, the law does give regulators authority to take such agreements into account as part of meeting that obligation, when considering a bank’s application to open a new branch or to acquire or merge with another bank.
The agreements continue momentum from 2016, a landmark year in which the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and its members negotiated $62.6 billion in community reinvestment agreements with banks. NCRC also facilitated all three of the agreements announced in the past month.
‘In this agreement, our communities will realize reinvestment where there has been disinvestment for decades,’ Josephine Rogers-Smith at Indianapolis’ Martindale-Brightwood CDC said in a statement. ‘We should see growth in small business lending, affordable housing, home ownership, and economic and community development’.”
