An invitation to cut CRA-related "burden"

Your opportunity this week, should you choose to accept it, is to tell the federal banking regulators how to "reduce regulatory burden" under the headings of "Prompt Corrective Action" and "Disclosure and Reporting of [Community Reinvestment Act]-Related Agreements." This invitation to comment (by April 4, 2006) is the last in a series of topic-specific invitations required by the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996.

Comments may be submitted at any of the four agencies that enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, or at a special site with the mellifluous name of www.EGRPRA.gov and a dandy logo with a scissors rampant snipping a red tape sinister. This newest request for comment isn't actually posted at www.EGRPRA.gov yet but presumably it will be soon.

Meanwhile, comments are due January 9, 2006 (that's Monday) on the regulators' proposed Q&A document interpreting 2005's much more controversial rewrite of the rules for CRA compliance exams. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition is inviting members to comment in favor of keeping the CRA program's emphasis genuinely on service to low-income people, and in favor of more specific exam procedures for the newly created intermediate examination category for banks between $250 million and $1 billion in assets.