Private Bank Public Values and Priorities Under the Community Reinvestment Act

Abstract

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires banks to grant low-income communities access to credit. Federal agencies monitor CRA activity and rate banks on compliance. As an economic development tool, the CRA supports private investment of public outcomes. This paper uses qualitative content analysis to examine bank and nonprofit comments regarding proposed CRA rule changes and bank shareholder reports through the lens of the realized publicness framework, to explore how banks express public values. This study finds that banks espouse public values, but that the context of those values is not aligned with community nonprofit values.