New Fed Data Increases Democrats’ Community Investment Concerns

House Democrats said the release of a trove of Federal Reserve community lending data highlighted what they said is a lack of rigor in other regulators’ plans to update rules governing banks’ loans to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and, to a lesser extent the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have come under criticism for a December proposal to rewrite their Community Reinvestment Act rules. Community groups and Democrats have complained that the process was rushed and will ultimately lead to the CRA, a 1977 anti-redlining law, being gutted.

The Fed’s Friday release of ...