Cra's 25th Anniversary: The Past, Present, and Future
This paper focuses on the past, present, and future rules and regulations implementing CRA as developed, applied, and enforced by the federal bank and thrift regulators. The past rules and regulations refer to those in effect during the law's first 18 years, through 1995, when CRA underwent its first major reform. The present CRA rules and regulations were adopted then, with the mandate that they would be reviewed for possible reform in 2002. The future rules and regulations are being drafted now by the regulators, based on their review of approximately 400 public comments; the reform recommendations should be released sometime during the second half of 2002. The future of CRA's legacy as arguably the perfect fair market regulation in a world of Compassionate Capitalism will depend upon the direction of these reforms. Optimal public policy by the bank and thrift regulators in this regard must represent the ideal balance between competing consumer and industry interests. This paper represents the first comprehensive analysis of the public comments and concludes with specific recommendations that will lead to optimal public policy.
Corporate citizenship in the context of the financial services sector: what lessons from the Financial Sector Charter?
This article argues that the introduction of the Financial Sector Charter (FSC) in South Africa is an important innovation in terms of creating a framework for the sector to promote corporate citizenship. If implemented in its totality, the FSC promises to make a significant contribution to the transformation of the sector. However, on the basis of performance to date, the authors raise concerns about the prospects of the FSC being instrumental in this transformation. They suggest that the sector risks missing the valuable opportunity it has generated for itself. The lack of progress also raises the fundamental question as to whether transformation in the financial services sector can really be achieved on the basis of the model of self-regulation as embodied in the Charter.
Birth, growth, and life or death of newly chartered banks
Thousands of new commercial banks have been chartered in the U.S. over the past two decades. This article documents how the financial characteristics of new banks evolve over time, develops a simple theory of why and when new banks fail, and tests the theory using a variety of methods.