News
On Monday, October 8th, CDBA and First Eagle Bank organized a regional CDFI Banker gathering in Chicago before the annual OFN Conference. The event was an exciting opportunity for locals to network with mission-driven banks from around the country and to engage on hot topics in the community development banking sector in the areas of policy, best practices, impact measurement.
A new movement in Oakland has locals calling for the establishment of a new institution, the Oakland Public Bank. This bank is meant to be a more mission driven and impact focused alternative to big banks in the area. However, Oakland's own Community Bank of the Bay, started in 1996, largely does much of this already. So is the proposal for this new bank just treading old ground?
Increased regulatory challenges lead to increased compliance costs. This causes substantial operational impacts on financial institutions across the United States, including CDFI banks. Join leading financial, regulatory, and investment experts in Washington, DC to learn how tech is solving complex regulation, automating solutions, and enabling compliance management. Speakers include Bank of America's Cathy Bessant, Coinbase's Brian Brooks, and former CIA Director John Brennan. Click here to register.
Watch this short video which takes us through some of the crucial impact work Carver Federal Savings Bank does for its community. Carver reinvests more than 80 percent of deposits back into its community through loans that support local job creation, development, and revitalization. In this video you will learn about the work Carver does with four customers making tremendous cultural and economic contributions to their community. These customers include the influential Dance Theatre of Harlem, the historic Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the entrepreneurial Classico Building Maintenance company, and the inspiring Brooklyn Free School.
New research shows that where children live matters deeply in whether they prosper as adults. On Monday the Census Bureau, in collaboration with researchers at Harvard and Brown, published nationwide data that will make it possible to pinpoint — down to the census tract, a level relevant to individual families — where children of all backgrounds have the best shot at getting ahead. Believing this, officials in the Seattle Housing Authority are offering families with housing vouchers extra rent money and help to find a home in these prosperous areas.
John Lewis has more than 22 years of experience in the financial services industry and works as the Executive Vice President & Chief Administrative Officer for The Harbor Bank of Maryland. As such, Lewis is aptly prepared to offer crucial insights regarding the new 2018 investing incentives created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In this article, Lewis speaks specifically towards the topic of Opportunity Zones.
Increasing diversity in the executive ranks of the banking industry requires the support of senior leadership and more determination from those looking to move up, according to presenters at a forum on minorities in banking hosted by the Federal Reserve. The two-day event featured speakers who provided advice on how to improve the experiences of minorities at banks of all sizes. The most concerning area was promotion. In the Chicago area, minorities make up a third of the nearly 88,000 banking jobs, but only 9% of the market's roughly 3,100 senior-level posts.
The Trump Administration recently proposed changes to the Community Reinvestment Act, a law initially intended to fix problems caused by redlining. Recent investigations show that redlining never went away, and these underserved areas continue to fall behind in racial and economic-equity indicators. So clearly, CRA could be improved. But it has been an important antidote to redlining and plays a critical role in increasing access to fair credit. Now advocates and bankers serving the public interest have the opportunity to make it better, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's advance notice of proposed rulemaking out for comment. The author of this article presents three areas to consider when deciding how.
In an effort to foster more sustainable, responsible, and impactful investing outcomes, VCC's Virginia Impact Investing Forum has released its first Virginia Impact Report. This collection of 15 articles offers advisors, investors, philanthropists, and other stakeholders a platform for discussion and learning opportunities about impact investing across the state. The report provides perspectives, case studies, and covers many topics relating to mission aligned investing, reducing poverty, uncovering "blind spots" and much more.
In Arkansas, one in 10 households currently do not have a bank account. Because of this, most families rely on expensive services to access their money and to monthly bills. Luckily, a new program called Bank on Arkansas+ is working to expand access to banking in these underserved communities. Southern Bancorp is one of the leading institutions helping launch the program with their new Opportunity Card. Watch the news report here.