Regulatory changes 1995
In July 1993, President Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.[13] Robert Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, under President Clinton, explained that this was in line with President Clinton's strategy to "deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities". Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA and further reduce red-lining, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, affirmed his belief that availability of credit should not depend on where a person lives, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live." Bentsen said that the proposed changes would "make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act", and "cut back a lot of the paperwork and the cost on small business loans".[11]
In 1995, the CRA regulations were substantially revised to address criticisms that the regulations, and the agencies' implementation of them through the examination process, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results. The agencies also changed the CRA examination process to incorporate these revisions.[13] Information about banking institutions CRA ratings were made available via web page for public comment.[11] The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also revised its regulations, allowing lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of industrial sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize the low- and moderate-income community where the site was located.[25]
During March 1995 congressional hearings William A. Niskanen, chair of the Cato Institute, criticized the proposals for political favoritism in allocating credit and micromanagement by regulators, and that there was no assurance that banks would not be expected to operate at a loss. He predicted they would be very costly to the economy and banking system, and that the primary long term effect would be to contract the banking system. He recommended Congress repeal the Act.[26]
Responding to concerns that the CRA would lower bank profitability, a 1997 research paper by economists at the Federal Reserve found that "[CRA] lenders active in lower-income neighborhoods and with lower-income borrowers appear to be as profitable as other mortgage-oriented commercial banks".[27] Speaking in 2007, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke noted that, "managers of financial institutions found that these loan portfolios, if properly underwritten and managed, could be profitable" and that the loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default".[7]
According to a 2000 United States Department of the Treasury study of lending trends in 305 U.S. cities between 1993 and 1998, $467 billion in mortgage credit flowed from CRA-covered lenders to low- and medium-income borrowers and areas. In that period, the total number of loans to poorer Americans by CRA-eligible institutions rose by 39% while loans to wealthier individuals by CRA-covered institutions rose by 17%. The share of total US lending to low and meduim income borrowers rose from 25% in 1993 to 28% in 1998 as a consequence. [28]
[edit] Legislative changes 1999
In 1999 the Congress enacted and President Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the "Financial Services Modernization Act," which repealed the part of the Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services. The bill was killed in 1998 because Senator Phil Gramm wanted the bill to expand the number of banks which no longer would be covered by the CRA. He also demanded full disclosure of any financial deals which community groups had with banks, accusing such groups of "extortion." In 1999 Senators Christopher Dodd and Charles E. Schumer broke another deadlock by forcing a compromise between Gramm and the Clinton administration which wanted to prevent banks from expanding into insurance or securities unless they were compliant with the CRA. In the final compromise, the CRA would cover bank expansions into new lines of business, community groups would have to disclose certain kinds of financial deals with banks, and smaller banks would be reviewed less frequently for CRA compliance.[29][30][31] On signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, President Clinton said that it, "establishes the principles that, as we expand the powers of banks, we will expand the reach of the [Community Reinvestment] Act".[32]
[edit] Regulatory changes 2005
In 2002 there was an inter-agency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered.[13] In 2003, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted that dramatic changes in the financial services landscape had weakened the CRA, and that [in 2003] less than 30 percent of all home purchase loans were subject to intensive review under the CRA.[33]
In early 2005, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) implemented new rules that – among other changes – allowed thrifts with over $1 billion in assets to meet their CRA obligations without regard to services for, or investments in, their communities. In April 2005, a contingent of Democratic Congressmen issued a letter protesting these changes, saying they undercut the ability of the CRA to "meet the needs of low and moderate-income persons and communities".[34] The changes were also opposed by community groups concerned that it would weaken the CRA.[35]
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency put a new set of regulations into effect in September 2005.[36] The regulations included less restrictive new definitions of "small" and "intermediate small" banks.[7] "Intermediate small banks" were defined as banks with assets of less than $1 billion, which allows these banks to opt for examination as either a small bank or a large bank.[36] Currently banks with assets greater than $1.061 billion have their CRA performance evaluated according to lending, investment and service tests. The agencies use the Consumer Price Index to adjust the asset size thresholds for small and large institutions annually.[13]
[edit] Proposed regulatory changes
In 2007 Ben Bernanke suggested further increasing the presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the affordable housing market to help banks fulfill their CRA obligations by providing them with more opportunities to securitize CRA-related loans.[37]
On February 13, 2008 the United States House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing on the Community Reinvestment Act’s impact on the provision of loans, investments and services to under-served communities and its effectiveness. There were 15 witnesses from government and the private sector.[38]
On April 15, 2008 an FDIC official told the committee that the FDIC was exploring offering incentives for banks to offer low-cost alternatives to payday loans. Doing so would allow them favorable consideration under their Community Reinvestment Act responsibilities. It had recently begun a two-year pilot project with an initial group of 31 banks.[39]
[edit] Controversies and criticisms
The effects of the Community Reinvestment Act on the housing markets are controversial for a number of reasons.
[edit] Effectiveness
Economists and financial people writing a Federal Reserve report, including Jeffrey W. Gunther, who also wrote a report on CRA for the Cato Institute, have wondered if the CRA was – or at least had become – irrelevant, because it was not needed to force banks to make profitable loans to a variety of lenders.[40][41] In a 2003 research paper, economists at the Federal Reserve could not find clear evidence that the CRA increased lending and home ownership more in low income neighborhoods than in higher income ones.[42] A 2008 Competitive Enterprise Institute study resulted in a similar finding.[43] Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke has stated that an underlying assumption of the CRA – that more lending equals better outcomes for local communities – may not always be true. However, he also notes that at least in some instances, "the CRA has served as a catalyst, inducing banks to enter under-served markets that they might otherwise have ignored".[7]
The Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based policy and advocacy nonprofit, found in an analysis of 1996 Chicago-area survey data that low income areas still lagged behind in access to commercial loans. Most small business loans made by CRA regulated banks went to higher income areas; 16.6% in low-income areas, 18.4% in low- and moderate-income tracts; 21.8% in middle-income areas and 23.1% in upper-income areas.[44]
In a 1998 paper, Alex Schwartz of the Fannie Mae Foundation found that CRA agreements were "consistently successful in meeting their goals for mortgages, investments in low-income housing tax credits, grant giving to community-based organizations, and in opening (and keeping open) inner-city bank branches."[45] In a 2000 report for the US Treasury, several economists concluded that the CRA had the intended impact of improving access to credit for minority and low-to-moderate-income consumers.[46]
In a 2005 paper for the New York University Law Review, Michael S. Barr uses empirical evidence to demonstrate that the CRA had overcome market failures to increase access to credit for low-income, moderate-income, and minority borrowers at relatively low cost. He contends that the CRA is justified, has resulted in progress, and should be continued.[47]
Speaking to the February 2008 Congressional Committee on Financial Services hearing on the CRA, Sandra L. Thompson, Director of the Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection at the FDIC, lauded the positive impact of CRA, noting that, "studies have pointed to increases in lending to low- and moderate-income customers and minorities in the decades since the CRA's passage." She cited a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, that found that "data for 1993 through 2000 show home purchase lending to low- and moderate-income people living in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods grew by 94 percent – more than in any of the other income categories".[4]
In his statement before the same hearing, New York University economics professor Larry White stated that regulator efforts to "lean on" banks in vague and subjective ways to make loans is an "inappropriate instrument for achieving those goals." In a world of national banking enterprises, these policies are more likely to drive institutions out of neighborhoods. He stated that better ways to accomplish the goals would be vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, of antitrust laws to promote competition, and federal funding of worthy projects directly through an "on-budget and transparent process" like the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.[48]
[edit] Housing advocacy groups
In an article for the New York Post, economist Stan Liebowitz wrote that community activists intervention at yearly bank reviews resulted in their obtaining large amounts of money from banks, since poor reviews could lead to frustrated merger plans and even legal challenges by the Justice Department.[49] Michelle Minton noted that Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan donated hundred of thousands of dollars to ACORN at about the same time they had were to apply for permission to merge and needed to comply with CRA regulations.[43]
According to the New York Times, some of these housing advocacy groups provided early warnings about the potential impact of lowered credit standards and the resulting unsupportable increase in real estate values they were causing in low to moderate income communities. Ballooning mortgages on rental properties threatened to require large rent increases from low and moderate income tenants that could ill afford them. [50]
Housing advocacy groups were also leaders in the fight against subprime lending in low- and moderate-income communities, "In fact, community advocates had been telling the Federal Reserve about the dangers of subprime lending since the 1990s", according to Inner City Press. "For example, Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch commented to the Federal Reserve about the practices of now-defunct non-bank subprime lender New Century, when U.S. Bancorp bought warrants for 24% of New Century's stock. The Fed, rather than take any action on New Century, merely waited until U.S. Bancorp sold off some of the warrants, and then said the issue was moot." However, subprime loans were so profitable, that they were aggressively marketed in low-and moderate-income communities, even over the objections and warnings of housing advocacy groups like ACORN.[51]
[edit] Predatory Lending
Starting in the 1980's, judicial decisions and federal law had preempted usury laws limiting interest rates.[7][52] By the late 1990's, predatory lending – exploitative high-cost loans to gullible borrowers – had become a serious problem in lower-income neighborhoods.
In a 2002 study exploring the relationship between the CRA and predatory lending, Kathleen C. Engel and Patricia A. McCoy noted that banks could receive CRA credit by lending or brokering predatory loans in lower-income areas. CRA regulated banks may also inadvertently facilitate predatory lending by financing predatory lenders. They also noted that CRA regulations as it was then administered, failed to penalize banks that engaged in predatory lending. They recommended that the federal agencies use the CRA to sanction behavior that either directly or indirectly increased predatory lending by lowering the CRA rating of any bank that facilitated predatory lending.[53] Other analysts and community groups had also complained about this problem.[citation needed]
The FDIC has tried to address this issue by "stopping abusive practices through the examination process and supervisory actions; encouraging banks to serve all members and areas of their communities fairly; and providing information and financial education to help consumers make informed choices". FDIC policy currently states that "predatory lending can have a negative effect on a bank's CRA performance."[54]
[edit] Relation to 2008 financial crisis
See also: Subprime mortgage crisis
Some commentators have charged that the CRA contributed in part to the 2008 financial crisis, as it encouraged banks to make unsafe loans. For example, economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry.[49] In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged that the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks."[55] In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Austrian school economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country.[56]
A Christian Science Monitor editorial also mentions the Community Reinvestment Act and the government-backed Fannie Mae as being responsible for pushing banks and mortgage brokers into granting easy credit and subprime loans to those who could not afford them.[57] Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University, in an opinion piece for CNN, calls for “getting rid” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that “pressure banks into subprime lending.”[58]
However, others dispute the involvement of the CRA in the crisis. In a Bank for International Settlements ("BIS") working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust," relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[59]
Some commentators note that CRA regulated loans tend to be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton,[60][32] stated that a Federal Reserve survey showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA. Another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. He stated that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps" one in four sub-prime loans. Referring to CRA and abuses in the subprime market, Michael Barr stated that in his judgment "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight". [61] According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis.[62] A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as likely to resell the loans.[63]
Assistant professor of law Alan M. White[64] notes that some abuses blamed on the CRA actually occurred because the Housing and Urban Development and Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight under the Bush administration allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their affordable housing goals by buying subprime mortgage-backed securities. These affordable housing goals were motivated by similar aims, but not part of the CRA.[65]
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