BPI, Joint Trades Urge OCC to Join Fed, FDIC in Joint Rulemaking on CRA

BPI joined the American Bankers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several financial and business trades in a joint letter on Feb. 2 calling on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to pursue a joint Community Reinvestment Act rule with the FDIC and Federal Reserve and stop its work on establishing performance benchmarks related to its June rule. The OCC should withdraw its June 2020 CRA rule, or delay the compliance date for at least two years, and immediately move toward a joint effort with the FDIC and Fed, the trades wrote. The OCC’s benchmarks NPR would call for historical data that banks may not have, and would use a flawed benchmarking methodology to measure banks’ performance in meeting CRA goals. A unified approach among the OCC, Fed and FDIC on the rule would benefit customers and communities where the CRA aims to promote greater credit access.