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UNITED BANK MORTGAGE CORPORATION
From: Cindy Lowman [mailto:Cindy.Lowman@unitedbankofmichigan.com]
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 10:05 AM
To: Comments
Subject: Re: CRA Thresholds
Cynthia Lowman, President
United Bank Mortgage Corporation
900 East Paris SE
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
616-559-7000
Mr. Robert E. Feldman
Executive Secretary
Attention: Comments/Legal ESS
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
550 17th Street, NW
Washington DC 20429
Re: RIN Number 3064-AC50: FDIC Proposed Increase in the Threshold for
the Small Bank CRA Streamlined Examination
Dear Sir:
I represent a subsidiary of United Bank of Michigan, located in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, a community of just under 200,000 residents. We
service several smaller communities ranging in size from 600 to 5,000
residents. The bank has total assets of $375 million and is currently
subject to large bank CRA examination criteria.
I am writing to strongly support the FDIC’s proposal to raise the
threshold for the streamlined small bank CRA examination to $1 billion
without regard to size of the bank’s holding company. This would greatly
relieve the regulatory burden imposed on many small banks such as my own
under the current regulation, which are required to meet the standards
imposed on the nation’s largest $1 trillion banks. I understand that
this is not an exemption from CRA and that the bank would still have to
help meet the credit needs of its entire community and be evaluated by
our regulator. However, I believe that this would lower our current
regulatory burden by a reduction in man hours of at least 200 per year
just for data preparation and input required to meet the reporting
requirements.
I also support the addition of a community development (CD) criterion
to the small bank examination for larger community banks. It appears to
be a significant improvement over the investment test. However, I urge
the FDIC to adopt its original $500 million threshold for small banks
without a CD criterion and only apply the new CD criterion to community
banks greater than $500 million up to $1 billion. Banks under $500
million now hold about the same percent of overall industry assets as
community banks under $250 million did a decade ago when the revised CRA
regulations were adopted, so this adjustment in the CRA threshold is
appropriate. As FDIC examiners know, it has proven extremely difficult
for small banks, especially those in rural areas, to find appropriate
CRA qualified investments in their communities. Many small banks have
had to make regional or statewide investments that are extremely
unlikely to ever benefit the banks’ own communities. That was certainly
not the intent of Congress when it enacted CRA.
An additional reason to support the FDIC’s CD criterion is that it
significantly reduces the current regulation’s “cliff effect”. Today,
when a small bank goes over $250 million, it must completely reorganize
its CRA program and begin a massive new reporting, monitoring and
investment program. If the FDIC adopts its proposal, a state nonmember
bank would move from the small bank examination to an expanded but still
streamlined small bank examination, with the flexibility to mix
Community Development loans, services and investments to meet the new CD
criterion. This would be far more appropriate to the size of the bank,
and far better than subjecting the community bank to the same large bank
examination that applies to $1 trillion banks. This more graduated
transition to the large bank examination is a significant improvement
over the current regulation.
I strongly oppose making the CD criterion a separate test from the
bank’s overall CRA evaluation. For a community bank, CD lending is not
significantly different from the provision of credit to the entire
community. The current small bank test considers the institution’s
overall lending in its community. The addition of a category of CD
lending (and services to aid in lending and investments as a substitute
for lending) fits well within the concept of serving the whole
community. A separate test would create an additional CD obligation and
regulatory burden that would erode the benefit of the streamlined exam.
In conclusion, I believe that the FDIC has proposed a major
improvement in the CRA regulations, one that much more closely aligns
the regulations with the Community Reinvestment Act itself, and I urge
the FDIC to adopt its proposal, with the recommendations above. I will
be happy to discuss these issues further with you, if that would be
helpful.
Sincerely,
Cynthia S. Lowman
President-UBMC |
