Federal Reserve System March 11, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The OCC, Board, and FDIC (collectively, ``federal banking agencies'' or ``the Agencies'') are issuing this notice of proposed rulemaking that would revise certain provisions of our rules implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). We plan to take this action in response to public comments received by the federal banking agencies and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) on a February 2004 inter-agency CRA proposal and by the FDIC on its August 2004 CRA proposal. The current proposal would address regulatory burden imposed on some smaller banks by revising the eligibility requirements for CRA evaluation under the lending, investment, and service tests. Specifically, the proposal would provide a simplified lending test and a flexible new community development test for small banks with an asset size between $250 million and $1 billion. Holding company affiliation would not be a factor in determining which CRA evaluation standards applied to a bank. In addition, the proposal would revise the term ``community development'' to include certain community development activities, including affordable housing, in underserved rural areas and designated disaster areas.