Thrift Supervision Office April 12, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In this final rule, OTS is revising the definition of ``community development'' in its Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations to reduce burden and provide greater flexibility to meet community needs. The change is designed to encourage savings associations to increase their community development lending, qualified investments, and community development services in distressed or underserved rural areas and designated disaster areas. This change will make OTS's definition of ``community development'' and the definition of the other federal banking agencies uniform. OTS is also making a technical change to conform the lettering of its definitions to that of the other federal banking agencies. Accompanying this final rule and published in the Notices portion of today's Federal Register, is a Notice and Request for Comment to revise OTS's CRA guidance. That notice contains proposed questions and answers related to the revised definition of ``community development'' and other topics as well as revisions to existing questions and answers.