A strengthened Community Reinvestment Act must advance digital equity

A group of organizations and individuals committed to digital equity wrote a letter to US Bank Regulatory Agencies urging them to modernize the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). "The CRA was enacted in 1977 to set standards for financial institutions to meet the banking and credit needs of their underserved local communities and to help build individual and community assets," says the letter. "The CRA must be updated and modernized to recognize and address the critical importance of digital equity for creating opportunities for upward mobility and encouraging investments that will bridge the gap between digital haves and have-nots. We welcome a recent joint proposal to modernize and strengthen CRA regulations issued by the bank regulatory agencies in the US — the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In the spirit of collaboration and in response to the agencies’ request for comments, we — a group of organizations and individuals committed to digital equity — have submitted recommendations to further strengthen the CRA so it encourages investment in digital equity and more effectively serves its purpose of strengthening communities and improving lives."