OCC Rates 2 Banks ‘Outstanding,’ 9 ‘Satisfactory’ in CRA Compliance

Two banks were rated “outstanding” and nine were rated “satisfactory” in the latest list of banks examined for Community Reinvestment Act compliance by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

None of the banks whose evaluations were made public in August were rated “need to improve” or “substantial noncompliance,” the OCC said in a Tuesday (Sept. 2) press release.

“Under the CRA, the OCC assesses an institution’s record of meeting the credit needs of its entire community, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institution,” the release said.

The CRA rules were enacted in 1977 to combat discriminatory lending practices in minority neighborhoods.

The two banks rated outstanding in CRA compliance in August were McLean, Virginia’s Chain Bridge Bank, and Jericho, New York’s Esquire Bank, according to the release.

While achieving an overall rating of outstanding, Chain Bridge Bank was rated satisfactory in the lending test and outstanding in the community development test, according to the bank’s performance evaluation disclosed by the OCC.

Esquire Bank was rated outstanding overall, with the OCC saying in its performance evaluation that the bank’s consumer and small business lending, community development lending and community development investments “exceeded the bank’s strategic goals for outstanding performance.”

The nine banks rated satisfactory include Bremen, Georgia’s American Commerce Bank; Encinitas, California’s C3bank; Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania’s Citizens Savings Bank; Elk City, Oklahoma’s First National Bank and Trust; Tysons, Virginia’s HSBC Bank; Scottsdale, Arizona’s Southwest Heritage Bank; Dallas, Texas’s T Bank; Pauls Valley, Oklahoma’s The Pauls Valley National Bank; and Mineral Wells, Texas’s Titan Bank.

The OCC determines the CRA rating based on performance tests and standards outlined in the CRA rule and based on information about the institution and the community it serves, according to a question-and-answer page about the program.

The OCC’s list includes national banks, federal savings associations and insured federal branches of foreign banks, per the release.

Other types of banks are overseen and assigned CRA ratings and performance evaluations by the Federal Reserve Board or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.