Agencies Issue Joint Proposal Amending the Community Reinvestment Act Rules
AI Analysis
The OCC and FDIC issued a joint proposed rule on July 31, 2026 to amend the Community Reinvestment Act regulations, with the stated goals of tightening CRA consideration around lending and community development while reducing burden, especially for community banks. The proposal matters because it would rework CRA evaluation mechanics for banks of all sizes and would, if adopted, change what activities count for CRA credit and which banks must meet data collection and reporting requirements.
Key dates
- 2026-07-31
- OCC and FDIC issued the joint proposal amending CRA rules
- 2026-10-01 Deadline
- Approximate comment deadline, calculated as 60 days after the July 31, 2026 publication date if the proposal was published in the Federal Register on the same day as the release
Suggested considerations
- Compliance teams may wish to review whether current CRA strategies rely materially on deposit services, since the proposal would exclude deposit services from the retail banking services analysis.
- Firms may wish to map all community development grants and donations to identify whether documentation would support that funds are used for the primary purpose of community development and reach the intended assessment areas.
- Banks with assets at or below $10 billion may wish to assess the operational impact of being relieved from data collection, maintenance, and reporting requirements under the proposal.
- Institutions may wish to compare their current CRA performance-test approach against the proposed lending-focused framework and identify activities that could lose or gain CRA consideration.
- Compliance functions may wish to track the Federal Register publication date closely, because the comment window runs for 60 days after publication.
What changed
['The agencies said the proposal would keep the core CRA framework that has generally been in place since 1995, while making substantive, technical, and process-oriented revisions. The proposal follows the agencies’ October 24, 2023 CRA final rules, which were enjoined by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas before they became effective.', 'The proposal would place greater emphasis on lending performance and would narrow the retail banking services considered under CRA to credit services, expressly excluding deposit services from that part of the analysis.', 'The proposal would tighten treatment of community development grants and donations so that CRA consideration is tied more clearly to whether funds reach the communities they are intended to benefit rather than be
Compliance impact
The OCC describes the proposal as a material recalibration of CRA examinations, especially for banks that rely on deposit-services activity or on current grant-and-donation structures for CRA credit. The agencies frame the changes as reducing burden and improving objectivity, but the proposal could still require significant policy, controls, and documentation updates if adopted.
Who is affected
Related regulations
References
AI-generated analysis. May contain errors or omissions — verify with the original OCC source before acting. Full disclaimer.
What the OCC said
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the agencies) today proposed targeted changes to their current rules implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to better align with the statutory mandate; better ensure that community development grants reach the…
Extract from OCC . Read the full notice at the source for the authoritative text.