Today the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) joined a statement alongside nine civil rights, consumer protection and industry leaders following the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The CRA was created to prevent redlining and encourage banks to meet the credit needs of their communities, including low- or moderate-income communities, which are often comprised of members of communities of color. Communities of color are still readily discriminated against in this country’s credit and lending system – and these proposed changes will only serve to make this problem worse, doing the exact opposite of what the CRA intended and, indeed, undercutting its entire purpose. Any effort to modernize or advance the CRA has to strengthen its original intention – and this proposal does not come close to meeting this objective.
Read the joint statement here.
