FEDERAL COURTHOUSE, July 22 – Sources
this week say the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency and the FDIC are preparing to raise the asset
threshold for full Community Reinvestment Act compliance
from $1.6 billion to as much as $10 billion — potentially
moving hundreds of banks out of "large bank" status and
the full lending and investment scrutiny that comes with
it.
Fair Finance Watch has commented on bank
mergers spanning nearly this entire range this year. Laid
side by side, they show something reporting on a single
proposed number can't: banks are not clustered at either
extreme. They are spread across the whole spectrum the
rulemaking would redraw, and at least one sits precisely
where a rule change would newly exempt it from scrutiny it
faces today.
First, it must be noted that
the current leadership of the FDIC and OCC are already
gutting CRA. The FDIC dispensed with public notice of
branch applications, the very basis of CRA. See, Sept 10,
2025, American Banker, BankThink: "The FDIC is taking the
'community' out of CRA enforcement," by Matthew R. Lee, here.
The OCC has allowed crypto firms into bank, and not answer
on how fintechs evade CRA.
Now, to particularly banks, and their
gaming of the system: Bank of Nova Scotia's pending
application to acquire MapleMark Bank, a Dallas commercial
bank with roughly $1 billion in assets — already below
today's $1.6 billion threshold. Coastal Bend Bancshares'
acquisition of The First National Bank in Port Lavaca
creates a combined institution just over $1 billion, also
below the current line; FFW's comments documented NOW
account minimums rising 50 percent, Money Market minimums
rising 150 percent, Education IRAs eliminated, and trust
services subject to discontinuation in a rural Gulf Coast
county with few alternatives. Facing that record, Coastal
Bend's counsel cited the Federal Reserve's own April 21,
2026 supervisory memo citing "Miki" Bowman and signed by
Division of Supervision and Regulation Director Randall
Guynn, previously the banking industry's own longtime
outside counsel, for the proposition that existing CRA
ratings could substitute for a full convenience-and-needs
review.
FFW found
and read the memo. (It may have been publicized to banks,
but wasn't to the public). It does not mention CRA,
or convenience and needs, at all. FFW's subsequent FOIA
request confirmed no Board guidance connecting the two
exists anywhere in Federal Reserve records.
Just under the current line: Grasshopper
Bank, at approximately $1.59 billion, target of Enova
International, the publicly traded parent of high-cost
lenders CashNetUSA and NetCredit. FFW has separately
challenged the Federal Reserve in federal court after the
Board redacted even its own questions to Enova; fifteen
state attorneys general have told the Board the deal
"seeks to evade Congress and circumvent state limits on
high-cost or usurious lending," citing Enova's plan to
relocate Grasshopper's charter from New York, which caps
interest rates, to Utah, which does not.
Squarely in the middle, and the
clearest illustration of what a higher threshold would
actually do: CBS Banc-Corp's move on TAG Bancshares,
parent of Citizens Bank & Trust of Trenton, Georgia,
by CB&S Bank of Russellville, Alabama, creating a
combined institution of approximately $3.0 billion. Under
today's $1.6 billion threshold, this bank undergoes full
CRA review. Under a $10 billion threshold, it would not —
and FFW's 2024 HMDA analysis of CB&S Bank's existing
lending shows exactly what that review currently catches.
In Tennessee, CB&S made 182 mortgage loans to white
applicants against 30 denials, and only six loans to
African American applicants against nine denials —
CB&S denied more Black applicants in Tennessee that
year than it approved. In Alabama, the bank made 394 loans
to white applicants against 75 denials, versus 17 loans to
African American applicants against 14 denials. In
Mississippi, 106 loans to white applicants against 19
denials, versus 21 loans to African American applicants
against 16 denials. A bank with documented, current,
multi-state lending disparities, comfortably clear of the
line that subjects it to scrutiny today, comfortably short
of the line that would end it.
Higher still, and just over the
number under discussion: Stock Yards Bancorp's acquisition
of Field & Main Bancorp of Henderson, Kentucky,
creating a combined institution of approximately $10.4
billion — four hundred million dollars over the reported
$10 billion threshold. Where the final number lands will
determine whether a bank this size continues to face the
scrutiny it faces today or not.
Further up: BancFirst Corporation's pending
acquisition of SpiritBank, where FFW's comment documented
a live, current disparity: a 2025 HMDA record of one loan
to an African American applicant against five to white
applicants in the Tulsa assessment area, and a CRA
evaluation showing zero small business loans originated in
low-income census tracts.
And then two transactions, at very
different scales, that converge on the same state. Home
Bancshares' Centennial Bank, at approximately $23 billion,
sits well clear of any threshold the rulemaking would
touch: full CRA review was never in question for a bank
this size, threshold change or not.
But FFW's 2024 HMDA analysis shows exactly
what that review is meant to catch, and Centennial is now
trying to expand into new territory anyway. In Arkansas,
Centennial made 870 mortgage loans to white applicants
against 242 denials, versus 64 loans to African American
applicants against 48 denials — and FFW's analysis found
Centennial's lending to Black Arkansans has fallen for
years, from 113 loans in 2020 to just 64 in 2024. In
Florida, 406 loans to white applicants against 146
denials, versus 23 loans to African American applicants
against 27 denials, Centennial denied more Black
applicants in Florida that year than it approved. In
Alabama, 20 loans to white applicants against 11 denials,
versus a single loan to an African American applicant. In
Texas, 477 loans to white applicants against 151 denials,
versus 14 loans to African American applicants against 12
denials. Centennial now wants to expand into
Tennessee, the same state where CB&S Bank, described
above, already shows the sharpest lending disparity of any
bank in this year's comment file.
FFW filed in opposition to Centennial's
Tennessee expansion and requested a hearing, arguing that
a bank whose lending to Black applicants has been
shrinking for four years, and denies Black applicants more
often than it approves them in at least one state already,
should not be permitted to bring that pattern into a new
one. Two banks, two very different asset sizes, one shared
destination, and — on FFW's own numbers — the same
disparate pattern waiting for them there. Columbia
Financial's acquisition of Northfield Bancorp, closed July
20 at $18.0 billion in pro forma assets, and OceanFirst
Financial's acquisition of Flushing Financial, closed
earlier this year at roughly $23.5 billion, round out the
well-clear-of-any-threshold group — both remain subject to
full CRA review under either the current $1.6 billion line
or the reported $10 billion one.
One more exits the statute by a different
door entirely: The Hicksville Bank, a $227 million
community bank in Ohio, is being acquired not by another
bank but by Interra Credit Union — an institution the
Community Reinvestment Act does not reach at all,
regardless of size, because CRA applies to banks, not
credit unions.
Put together, these Fair Finance Watch's
2026 files amounts to a natural experiment in what
an asset threshold actually does. Real bank mergers this
year sit on both sides of nearly every plausible place
regulators could draw the line — from $227 million exiting
by charter conversion, through $1 billion, $1.6 billion,
$3 billion, $10.4 billion, up to $23.5 billion,
comfortably clear of any number under discussion.
Somewhere in that middle band sits a $3
billion Alabama-Georgia bank merger that would keep its
current oversight today and lose it tomorrow, on the
strength of nothing but where a number lands — while a $23
billion bank whose own lending to Black Arkansans has been
quietly shrinking for years tries to bring the same
pattern into a state where a smaller bank, soon to be
exempted, has already gotten there first. We'll have more
on all this. Watch this site.
