[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 7 (Friday, January 10, 2020)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 1285-1289]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-27290]


 ========================================================================
 Proposed Rules
                                                 Federal Register
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
 This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of 
 the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these 
 notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in 
 the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
 
 ========================================================================
 

  Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 7 / Friday, January 10, 2020 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 1285]]



DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

12 CFR Part 25

[Docket ID OCC-2019-0029]


Community Reinvestment Act Regulations; Request for Public Input

AGENCY: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Treasury.

ACTION: Request for information.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: On January 9, 2020, the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation (the agencies) published a notice of proposed rulemaking 
that would amend their regulations implementing the Community 
Reinvestment Act (CRA). The OCC seeks public input with this request 
for information to assist in determining how the proposed rule might be 
revised to ensure that the final rule better achieves the statute's 
purpose of encouraging banks to help serve their communities by making 
the framework more objective, transparent, consistent, and easy to 
understand. Specifically, this request for information seeks bank-
specific data and information to supplement currently-available data 
and to inform potential revisions to modernize and strengthen the CRA 
regulatory framework.

DATES: Comments should be submitted by March 10, 2020.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments to the OCC by any of the methods set 
forth below. Commenters are encouraged to submit comments through the 
Federal eRulemaking Portal or email, if possible. Please use the title 
``Community Reinvestment Act; Request for Information'' to facilitate 
the organization and distribution of the comments. You may submit 
comments by any of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal--``Regulations.gov'': Go to 
www.regulations.gov. Enter ``Docket ID OCC-2019-0029'' in the Search 
Box and click ``Search.'' Click on ``Comment Now'' to submit public 
comments.
     Click on the ``Help'' tab on the Regulations.gov home page 
to get information on using Regulations.gov, including instructions for 
submitting public comments.
     Email: [email protected].
     Mail: Chief Counsel's Office, Attention: RFI CRA Comment 
Processing, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street 
SW, Suite 3E-218, Washington, DC 20219.
     Hand Delivery/Courier: 400 7th Street SW, Suite 3E-218, 
Washington, DC 20219.
    Instructions: You must include ``OCC'' as the agency name and 
``Docket ID OCC-2019-0029'' in your comment.
    In general, the OCC will enter all comments received into the 
docket and publish the comments on the Regulations.gov website without 
change, including any business or personal information that you provide 
such as name and address information, email addresses, or phone 
numbers. Comments received, including attachments and other supporting 
materials, are part of the public record and subject to public 
disclosure.
    Respondents may designate information as confidential or request 
confidential treatment. The OCC will treat confidential commercial 
information submitted to the agency in accordance with 12 CFR 4.16 
consistent with Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 139 
S.Ct. 2356, 2363 (2019) and applicable guidance issued by the 
Department of Justice at https://www.justice.gov/oip/step-step-guide-determining-if-commercial-or-financial-information-obtained-person-confidential. The OCC may aggregate the information, use the aggregated 
information, and make the aggregated information public.
    You may review comments and other related materials that pertain to 
this rulemaking action by any of the following methods:
     Viewing Comments Electronically: Go to 
www.regulations.gov. Enter ``Docket ID OCC-2019-0029'' in the Search 
box and click ``Search.'' Click on ``Open Docket Folder'' on the right 
side of the screen. Comments and supporting materials can be viewed and 
filtered by clicking on ``View all documents and comments in this 
docket'' and then using the filtering tools on the left side of the 
screen.
     Click on the ``Help'' tab on the Regulations.gov home page 
to get information on using Regulations.gov. The docket may be viewed 
after the close of the comment period in the same manner as during the 
comment period.
     Viewing Comments Personally: You may personally inspect 
comments at the OCC, 400 7th Street SW, Washington, DC 20219. For 
security reasons, the OCC requires that visitors make an appointment to 
inspect comments. You may do so by calling (202) 649-6700 or, for 
persons who are deaf or hearing impaired, TTY, (202) 649-5597. Upon 
arrival, visitors will be required to present valid government-issued 
photo identification and submit to security screening in order to 
inspect comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ioan Voicu, Director, Compliance Risk 
Analysis Division, at (202) 649-5550; or Daniel Sufranski, Attorney, or 
Jean Xiao, Attorney, Chief Counsel's Office, (202) 649-5490; Office of 
the Comptroller of the Currency, 400 7th Street SW, Washington, DC 
20219. For persons who are deaf or hearing impaired, TTY users may 
contact (202) 649-5597.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background

    On January 9, 2020, the agencies issued a notice of proposed 
rulemaking that would make comprehensive changes to the CRA regulatory 
framework to ensure that the CRA remains a relevant and powerful tool 
for encouraging banks to serve the needs of their communities, 
particularly low- or moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods, consistent 
with the banks' safe and sound operations. As the proposed rule 
describes, there is broad recognition that the CRA regulations should 
be improved both in design and in application. Accordingly, the 
agencies proposed to modernize and strengthen the CRA regulatory 
framework to better achieve the underlying statutory purpose of 
encouraging banks to help serve their communities by making the 
framework more objective, transparent, consistent, and easy to 
understand. To accomplish these goals, the proposed rule seeks to 
strengthen the CRA regulations in four key areas by (1) clarifying 
which activities qualify for CRA credit; (2) updating where activities 
count for CRA credit; (3) creating a more transparent and objective 
method for measuring CRA

[[Page 1286]]

performance; and (4) providing for more transparent, consistent, and 
timely CRA-related data collection, recordkeeping, and reporting.

II. Request for Information

    The OCC gives notice that it seeks public input to assist in 
determining how the proposed rule should be revised to ensure that the 
final rule better achieves the statute's purpose of encouraging banks 
to help serve their communities by making the framework more objective, 
consistent, and transparent. As discussed in the proposed rule, the 
agencies analyzed currently-available historical data to determine the 
empirical benchmarks and thresholds that would be used in the general 
performance standards in Sec.  25.12 of the proposed rule. 
Specifically, the agencies reviewed the available Home Mortgage 
Disclosure Act (HMDA) data on home mortgages to LMI borrowers, Call 
Report data on the on-balance sheet value of home mortgages, consumer 
loans, small business and small farm loans, and credit bureau data on 
the outstanding balances of consumer loans. The agencies analyzed these 
sources together, collected additional information about community 
development investments from historical performance evaluations, and 
made some assumptions to estimate what banks' average CRA evaluation 
measures would have been from 2011-2017 under the proposed rule's 
framework.
    This request for information seeks bank-specific data and 
information to supplement the agencies' analyses and currently-
available data. Specifically, it requests four types of bank data or 
information: (1) Retail domestic deposit activities; (2) qualifying 
activity data; (3) data on retail loans originated and sold within 90 
days; and (4) other retail loan data. This data should reflect the past 
three years. Responses to this request are informed by a review of the 
proposed rule.
    Respondents may answer all or some of the requests for information 
below. All information should be in a comma delimited file, and dollar 
values should be in 1,000s. Standard Federal Information Processing 
Standards (FIPS) codes should be used for geographic data, and the 
following codes should be used, unless otherwise instructed:

 -99--Information not available
 -98--Not applicable (e.g., geographic area is not part of a 
facility-based assessment area)
 -9999--Not part of a metropolitan statistical area

    The OCC is particularly interested in receiving information and 
supporting data on the following topics and questions:

Retail Domestic Deposit Activities

    As discussed in the proposed rule, a bank's main office and 
deposit-taking facility locations and retail domestic deposit data 
would be required to determine its assessment area delineations, its 
ratings, and the benchmarks associated with ratings in Sec. Sec.  25.08 
and 25.11 of the proposed rule. The following data will supplement 
existing data and assist the OCC in, among other things, making 
potential revisions to the proposed thresholds in Sec.  25.12.

Questions and Requests Regarding Retail Domestic Deposit Activities

    1. What are the bank's total amount of retail domestic deposits 
received, by county for each quarter-end? As discussed in Sec.  25.03 
of the proposed rule, retail domestic deposits would include deposits 
by individuals, partnerships, and corporations, as reported on Schedule 
RC-E, item 1, of the Call Report other than a deposit that is obtained, 
directly or indirectly, from or through the mediation or assistance of 
a deposit broker as that term is defined in section 29 of the Federal 
Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1831f(g)). The county should be 
assigned based on the accountholder's physical address, not the 
location of the branch that accepted the deposit.
    2. Assign and provide a unique numerical identification (ID) to 
each facility-based assessment area, as defined in the proposed rule. 
As discussed in Sec.  25.08 of the proposed rule, a bank's main office, 
branches, and non-branch deposit-taking facilities, as well as the 
surrounding geographies in which the bank has originated or purchased a 
substantial portion of its loans, would be included in the facility-
based assessment area. Facility based assessment areas would be 
comprised of one of the following that include one or more of the 
bank's main office, branches, and non-branch deposit-taking facilities: 
(1) A whole metropolitan statistical area (MSA); (2) the whole 
nonmetropolitan area of a state; (3) one or more whole, contiguous 
metropolitan divisions (MD) in a single MSA; or (4) one or more whole, 
contiguous counties or county equivalents in a single MSA or 
nonmetropolitan area.
    3. For the data above, provide county, MD/MSA, and State standard 
FIPS Codes.
    4. Are there burdens associated with collecting or reporting the 
data described in this section?

                  Table 1, Columns 1-6--Deposit and Assessment Area ID Data by County, Quarter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                               Data field                                Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Column 1......................  County.................................  FIPS code.
Column 2......................  MD/MSA.................................  FIPS code.
Column 3......................  State..................................  FIPS code.
Column 4......................  Facility-based Assessment Area Number..  Numeric indicator, created by Bank,
                                                                          that uniquely identifies each facility-
                                                                          based assessment area. Use code -98 if
                                                                          a county is not in a facility-based
                                                                          assessment area.
Column 5......................  Quarter-end/Year.......................  Specify date of data snapshot, e.g., as
                                                                          reported on Q4 call report.
                                                                         Q1YYYY: Jan1-March30
                                                                         Q2YYYY: April 1-June 30
                                                                         Q3YYYY: July1-Sept 30
                                                                         Q4YYYY: Oct1-Dec 31.
Column 6......................  Quarter-end Total Retail Domestic        $ value of retail domestic deposits in
                                 Deposits received from the county.       the county. County should be assigned
                                                                          based on depositor/business physical
                                                                          address (not location of the branch
                                                                          that holds the deposit).
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[[Page 1287]]

Total Qualifying Activities

    As discussed in the proposed rule and this request for information, 
the dollar value of a bank's qualifying activities would be required to 
determine a bank's ratings and to set the benchmarks associated with 
ratings in Sec.  25.12. The following data will supplement existing 
data and assist the OCC in, among other things, making potential 
revisions to the appropriate thresholds in the proposed rule.

Questions and Requests Regarding Total Qualifying Activities

    5. Calculate and report the sum, at the county level, of all 
quarter-end balances for each type of qualifying loan or community 
development (CD) investment held on the balance sheet. Calculate and 
report the sum of the associated dollar value, at the county level, for 
other CD investments (i.e., monetary and in-kind donations) and CD 
services made or provided in each quarter. Exclude from the calculation 
any loans that were sold within 90 days of origination by the bank. 
Qualifying activity would mean an activity that meets the criteria in 
Sec.  25.04 of the proposed rule. Qualifying activities would include 
qualifying loans, CD investments, and CD services. Qualifying loan 
means a retail loan, as defined in Sec.  25.03, that meets the criteria 
in Sec.  25.04(b) or a CD loan, as defined in Sec.  25.03, that meets 
the criteria in Sec.  25.04(c). CD investments are defined in Sec.  
25.03, which would include a requirement that the investment meets the 
criteria in Sec.  25.04(c). CD services are defined in Sec.  25.03, 
which would include a requirement that the service meets the criteria 
in Sec.  25.04(c).
    6. Are there burdens associated with collecting or reporting the 
data described in this section?

       Table 1, Columns 7-21--The Quarter-End Dollar Value of Each Qualifying Activity by County, Quarter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                               Data field                                Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Column 7......................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying home mortgages.
Column 8......................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying auto loans.
Column 9......................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying credit cards.
Column 10.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of other revolving lines of
                                 credit.
Column 11.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         Qualifying loans that are not credit
                                 balances of qualifying other consumer    cards or other revolving lines of
                                 loans.                                   credit, auto loans, or home mortgages.
Column 12.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying small loans to
                                 businesses in LMI census tracts.
Column 13.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying small loans to
                                 farms in LMI census tracts.
Column 14.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying small loans to
                                 small businesses in non-LMI census
                                 tracts.
Column 15.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying small loans to
                                 small farms in non-LMI census tracts.
Column 16.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying CD loans.
Column 17.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying CD investments
                                 held on balance sheet, excluding
                                 mortgage-backed securities and
                                 municipal bonds.
Column 18.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying mortgage backed
                                 securities.
Column 19.....................  Quarter-end, county-level sum of         .......................................
                                 balances of qualifying municipal
                                 revenue bonds.
Column 20.....................  County-level sum of qualifying services  .......................................
                                 performed during the quarter.
Column 21.....................  County-level sum of qualifying monetary  .......................................
                                 or in-kind donations not included in
                                 CD Investments held on balance sheet
                                 that were extended during the quarter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Only calculate the dollar value of qualifying loans not sold within 90 days of origination. When
  determining whether a loan is a qualifying loan, if borrower income is not available, use the income level of
  the census tract associated with the loan (e.g., if the loan is in a low or moderate-income tract, assume that
  the borrower has low or moderate income); and in the data description add an explanatory note indicating for
  what types of loans this assumption was used.

Qualifying Retail Loans Originated and Sold Within 90 Days

    As discussed in the proposed rule, the value of a bank's qualifying 
activities would be required to determine a bank's ratings and to set 
the benchmarks associated with ratings in Sec.  25.12. Retail loans 
originated and sold within 90 days that are qualifying activities would 
be valued at 25 percent of their origination value under Sec.  
25.06(d)(2). The following data will supplement existing data and 
assist the OCC in, among other things, making potential revisions to 
the appropriate thresholds in proposed rule.

Questions and Requests Regarding Qualifying Retail Loans Originated and 
Sold Within 90 Days

    7. Report all retail loans that are qualifying activities under 
Sec.  25.04 and that are originated and sold within 90 days of 
origination.
    8. Report the balance at origination of all retail loans reported 
in request 7.
    9. Report the origination date of each retail loan reported in 
request 7.
    10. Report the sell date of each retail loan reported in 7.
    11. Instead of reporting the information in questions 7 through 10, 
report the aggregate balance at origination of all retail loans that 
are qualifying activities under Sec.  25.04 and

[[Page 1288]]

that are originated and sold within 90 days of origination throughout 
the year.
    12. What are the burdens associated with collecting or reporting 
the data described in this section? How do the burdens differ if the 
data is collected at the loan level versus the aggregate level?

                Table 2--Full List of Qualifying Retail Loans Originated and Sold Within 90 Days
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                               Data field                                Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Column 1......................  Loan ID.                                 .......................................
Column 2......................  County.................................  FIPS code.
Column 3......................  MD/MSA.................................  FIPS code.
Column 4......................  State..................................  FIPS code.
Column 5......................  Facility-based Assessment Area Number..  Numeric indicator, created by Bank,
                                                                          that uniquely identifies each facility-
                                                                          based assessment area. Use code -98 if
                                                                          a loan is not within a facility-based
                                                                          assessment area.
Column 6......................  Loan type..............................  Mortgage, Credit card, Auto, Other,
                                                                          etc.
Column 7......................  Balance at origination for the           .......................................
                                 qualifying retail loan.
Column 8......................  Origination date of the qualifying       DDMMYYY.
                                 retail loan.
Column 9......................  Sell date of the qualifying loan.......  DDMMYYYY.
Column 10.....................  Income assumption indicator............  Yes or 1 if borrower income is based on
                                                                          tract income and No or 0 if actual
                                                                          borrower income is used.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: When determining whether a loan is a qualifying loan, if borrower income is not available, use the income
  level of the census tract associated with the loan (e.g., if the loan is in a low or moderate-income tract,
  assume that the borrower has low or moderate income) and add a flag indicating whether this assumption was
  used.

Volume of Retail Loans by Census Tract

    As discussed in the proposed rule and this request for information, 
banks would be evaluated under retail lending distribution tests 
described in Sec.  25.11 of the proposed rule. The following data will 
supplement existing data relevant to the proposed retail lending 
distribution tests.

Questions and Requests Regarding Volume of Retail Loans by Census Tract

    12. Calculate the total number and dollar volume, at the census 
tract level, of all new retail loans originated for each of the bank's 
retail loan product lines. Retail lending product line would be defined 
in Sec.  25.03 to include home mortgage loans, small loans to 
businesses, small loans to farms, automobile loans, credit card loans, 
other revolving credit lines, and other consumer loans (as those terms 
would be defined in under the proposed rule).
    13. For product lines other than small loans to businesses and 
small loans to farms, calculate the total number, at the census tract 
level, of all new retail loans originated for each retail loan product 
line to LMI individuals or families. For the small loans to businesses 
and small loans to farms product lines, as defined in Sec.  25.04, 
calculate, at the census tract level, the number of small loans 
originated to small businesses and to small farms, respectively.
    14. Using the same set of unique assessment area IDs as in Table 1, 
identify each facility-based assessment area.
    15. Report the Census Tract, County, MSA/MD, State.
    16. Are there burdens associated with collecting or reporting the 
data described in this section?

                               Table 3--Yearly Volume of Retail Loan Originations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                               Data Field                                Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Column 1......................  Census Tract...........................  FIPS code.
Column 2......................  County.................................  FIPS code.
Column 3......................  MD/MSA.................................  FIPS code.
Column 4......................  State..................................  FIPS code.
Column 5......................  Facility-based Assessment Area Number..  Numeric indicator, created by Bank,
                                                                          that uniquely identifies each facility-
                                                                          based assessment area. Use code -98 if
                                                                          a county is not in a facility-based
                                                                          assessment area.
Column 6......................  Number of home mortgage loan             .......................................
                                 originations in the tract to LMI
                                 individuals or families.
Column 7......................  Number of auto loan originations in the  .......................................
                                 tract to LMI individuals or families.
Column 8......................  Number of credit card accounts in the    .......................................
                                 tract to LMI individuals or families.
Column 9......................  Number of other revolving credit lines   .......................................
                                 in the tract to LMI individuals or
                                 families.
Column 10.....................  Number of other consumer loan            .......................................
                                 originations in the tract to LMI
                                 individuals or families.
Column 11.....................  Number of originations of small loans    .......................................
                                 in the tract to small businesses.
Column 12.....................  Number of originations of small loans    .......................................
                                 in the tract to small farms.
Column 13.....................  Number of home mortgage loan             .......................................
                                 originations in the tract.
Column 14.....................  Number of auto loan originations in the  .......................................
                                 tract.
Column 15.....................  Number of credit card accounts in the    .......................................
                                 tract.
Column 16.....................  Number of other revolving credit lines   .......................................
                                 in the tract.
Column 17.....................  Number of other consumer loan            .......................................
                                 originations in the tract.

[[Page 1289]]

 
Column 18.....................  Number of originations of small loans    .......................................
                                 to businesses in the tract.
Column 19.....................  Number of originations of small loans    .......................................
                                 to farms in the tract.
Column 20.....................  Dollar volume of home mortgage loan      .......................................
                                 originations in the tract.
Column 21.....................  Dollar volume of auto loan originations  .......................................
                                 in the tract.
Column 22.....................  Dollar volume of credit card accounts    .......................................
                                 in the tract.
Column 23.....................  Dollar volume of other revolving credit  .......................................
                                 lines in the tract.
Column 24.....................  Dollar volume of other consumer loan     .......................................
                                 originations in the tract.
Column 25.....................  Dollar volume of originations of small   .......................................
                                 loans to businesses in the tract.
Column 26.....................  Dollar volume of originations of small   .......................................
                                 loans to farms in the tract.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Dated: December 13, 2019.
Joseph M. Otting,
Comptroller of the Currency.
[FR Doc. 2019-27290 Filed 1-9-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4810-33-P