Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2018: Shake-up considered on how banks lend to the poor
A Trump-appointed federal bank regulator has suggested changing rules designed to encourage lending to the poor based on the location of a bank’s physical branches, a change opposed by community groups.
People familiar with the matter said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency privately sought other regulators’ input on eliminating the concept of geographic “assessment areas”—or areas where banks have branches or other offices—when deciding whether banks comply with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act.
It isn’t clear whether other regulators will go along with the comptroller’s idea or if the agency will formally propose it. Community groups that work on affordable lending issues worry it would reduce incentives for banks to lend in poor areas.
The CRA “is designed to respond locally, to ensure that deposits made by residents of a community are available for loans to people who live and do business in that community,” Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition of community groups, said in a Friday statement. “Doing away with assessment areas completely would undermine the original intent of the law.”
