What is the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)?
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), enacted in 1977, requires the Federal Reserve and other federal banking regulators to encourage financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they do business, including low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods.
Banking Regulators for the CRA
Three federal banking agencies, or regulators, are responsible for the CRA. Banks that have CRA obligations are supervised by one of these three regulators. Each regulator has a dedicated CRA site that provides information about the banks they oversee and those banks' CRA ratings and Performance Evaluations.
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
- Federal Reserve Board (FRB)
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
Federal Reserve's Role
The Federal Reserve supervises state member banks--or, state-chartered banks that have applied for and been accepted to be part of the Federal Reserve System--for CRA compliance.
To carry out its role, the Federal Reserve
- examines state member banks to evaluate and rate their performance under the CRA;
- considers banks' CRA performance in context with other supervisory information when analyzing applications for mergers, acquisitions, and branch openings; and
- shares information about community development techniques with bankers and the public.
Contact Us
To send a comment about the CRA website, please fill out our feedback form. To ensure that your question is properly routed, please select the Community Reinvestment Act from the "Staff Group" dropdown menu.