The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have jointly issued an interim final rule extending the applicability date of certain provisions within the 2023 Community Reinvestment Act Final Rule. The three federal banking agencies have pushed back the applicability date for facility-based assessment areas and related public file requirements from 1 April 2024 to 1 January 2026. The agencies said the change aligns the provisions so that all rules on where banks are evaluated take effect at the same time.
The Community Reinvestment Act, first enacted in 1977 to counter discriminatory lending practices, requires federally insured banks to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, with particular attention to low- and moderate-income neighbourhoods. The 2023 overhaul of the implementing regulations introduced new categories of assessment areas and evaluation criteria.
WHAT THE EXTENSION COVERS
The supplemental rule specifically addresses the facility-based assessment area provisions, which require banks to define geographic areas tied to their physical branch and deposit-taking locations and to be evaluated on their lending and investment performance within those areas. Technical amendments included in the rule confirmed that banks may continue to use the legacy CRA notice until 1 January 2026. As a result, institutions are not required to make changes to their existing assessment area designations or to update their public file contents ahead of that revised deadline.
The agencies said that, in the course of implementation work, they had identified issues with the April 2024 date, including uncertainty raised by some banks, because the provision references parts of the rule that do not apply until 1 January 2026.
OTHER PROVISIONS
The extension does not delay all elements of the 2023 CRA Final Rule. Other provisions of the revised framework retain their original effective dates.