The Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2019: Rewrite of Lower-Income Lending Rules to Advance in December
Community groups expressed skepticism about the OCC’s approach as well as the timing for completing the overhaul ahead of next year’s presidential election. “The timing of this proposal seems to be driven by political considerations, not substantive ones,” said Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The OCC’s approach, he said, may boil down CRA to a “dollar volume metric, easily accomplished by making high dollar loans and investments.”
First enacted in 1977, the CRA aimed to combat redlining—a practice of not lending in certain minority neighborhoods. At a time when many banking services are provided online, there is growing consensus among policymakers that the rules should be updated.
