Treasury Department

Many of Treasury’s recommendations for modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act would help financial institutions, not low-income communities.

The Treasury Department’s long-awaited report on modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act was heavy on glittering generalities but light on specifics, which explains why the report punted the real job of making needed reforms.

Critics argue that Community Reinvestment Act standards need to be more transparent, but creating more objective measures would require regulators to favor some types of loans over others.

The Treasury secretary has suggested raising an asset cutoff used by the Financial Stability Oversight Council to assess systemically significant nonbanks, removing some hedge funds and other risky firms from the council's purview.