An American Banker op-ed argues that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) does not need a complete overhaul; instead just some tweaks to modernize CRA will do the trick; taking “branchless banks” or digital banks into consideration they should be “be given credit for community development activities anywhere, rather than being limited to the artificially narrow assessment area around their main office.”; the only exception to this rule should be on banks that have a geographic concentration of deposits, so the assessment areas should consider a bank’s deposit-taking as well as branch footprint; also, the CRA credit for mortgage backed securities should not be eliminated. Source.
