Maureen Busch of The Bank of Tampa notes her bank will need to change its processes to extract CRA data from its core. ā—ˇFOCUS COMPLIANCE How will new CRA rules affect community banking? In May, a trio of federal legislative groups proposed a series of updates to guidelines under the Community Reinvestment Act. How do CRA lenders feel about these proposed changes, and what will be the results when they take eff ect? By Mary Thorson Wright orty-fi ve years ago, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was established to combat " redlining " in the banking industry. The aim was to ensure every depository institution in the U.S. served the needs of its entire community, especially low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. The last major regulatory overhaul of CRA occurred in 1995. The years F following evidenced stops and starts by the federal bank regulatory agencies to revise CRA. Stand-alone rulemaking comes with risks such as inconsistent standards across the regulatory agencies and confusion for banks. The current joint proposal could benefi t all community banks. On May 5, the OCC, Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) jointly released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) to strengthen and modernize CRA regulations to better achieve the purpose of the CRA. The comment period on the proposal ended Aug. 5. The proposal sets an eff ective date 60 days after fi nal rules are published in the Federal Register. " Since 1995, we have experienced 36 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q November 2022 Photo: Jeremy Scott