Declaring that federal banking regulators are intent on improving impact and transparency under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in a speech Wednesday briefly noted progress under regulators’ proposed CRA rule issued in May.
FDIC Acting Chairman Martin Gruenberg said a total of 1,000 “unique” comments had been received on the proposal (for which the comment deadline closed Aug. 5). He said many of the comments were “detailed and thoughtful,” and he said the agencies were “carefully reviewing them as we work toward a final rule.”
The FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve released their joint proposed rule May 5. This action followed a Fed advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) on which the Fed received more than 600 comments. Not long after that ANPR, the OCC began a process (since completed) to rescind a revised CRA rule that had been issued under the agency’s previous leadership and without the participation of either of the other two agencies.
Gruenberg, in a speech focusing largely on the agency’s recently completed household survey (during a meeting of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders), said regulators “remain committed to strengthening the impact of CRA and to increasing transparency and predictability in its application.”
Reg lookup: Community Reinvestment Act