Kristin Couch - CRA

My guest today is Kristin Couch.  She is the Vice President in charge of the CRA Program for United Community Bank, headquartered in Greenville, SC.  She is going to go way beyond just giving you a history lesson and defining a piece of legislation.  In order to understand where we are, I believe it is important to understand why and how we arrived here in the first place. The CRA followed similar laws passed to reduce discrimination in the credit and housing markets including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA). The Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or other personal characteristics. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires that financial institutions publicly disclose mortgage lending and application data. In contrast with those acts...The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) encourages certain insured depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they are chartered, including low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods, consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions.