Community Reinvestment Act

 What is the Community Reinvestment Act?

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, P.L. 95-128, 91 Stat.1147, title VII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, 12 U.S.C., subsection 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law passed by Congress in 1977.

The CRA encourages financial institutions to help meet their communities' needs—through safe and sound lending practices and by providing retail banking and community development services.

Federal regulators monitor whether banks and thrifts are fulfilling their CRA obligations. By law, these federal agencies—the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—must:

• regularly review the CRA performance of banks and savings and loans, and
• take into account the CRA record of a bank or thrift when it applies to open a new branch or merge with or acquire another institution.

In addition, each of the federal agencies works to educate these institutions about successful CRA programs in other parts of the country and suggests other ideas that might help develop the community.

An amendment to the Community Reinvestment Act in 1990 requires that CRA ratings be made public. Each bank or thrift must maintain a public file that contains the public section of its most recent CRA performance review, a list of its services and branches, written comments from the public, and certain other information.

CRA Public File Available for Inspection

State Bank & Trust Co.'s entire public CRA file is available at our office located at 1025 6th Street, Nevada, Iowa. You can ask to inspect this file, at no charge to you, any time the bank is open. 

You can ask to see the CRA file, which contains a copy of the public section of the bank's most recent CRA performance evaluation, and a list of services provided by your branch. Upon request, your bank must provide for inspection, within five days, all the information in the public file relating to your branch's assessment area. 

You may also ask the bank to provide you with a copy of its public CRA file for you to read at your convenience. The bank is allowed to charge you a reasonable fee to cover the cost of copying and mailing. 

The bank is also required to post a notice in its lobby that describes the purpose of the Community Reinvestment Act. This notice also explains that the public has a right to review a bank's CRA file and to make written comments about the bank's CRA performance. In addition, the notice names the federal regulator of the bank and states whether the bank is owned by a holding company. State Bank & Trust Co. is owned by Ames National Corporation, a holding company. 

In compliance with the requirements of the Community Reinvestment Act, the following information must be maintained in a public file, current as of April 1 of each year. 

CRA Public File Online

State Bank & Trust Co. is pleased to provide its CRA Public File information online for viewing convenience. By providing our CRA public information online, State Bank & Trust Co. is better able to keep the information current, while providing convenient access. 

Comments or Questions

If you have comments or questions about State Bank & Trust Co.'s CRA Public File, contact: State Bank & Trust Co., CRA Officer, 1025 6th Street, Nevada, Iowa 50036.

Written Comments

All written comments received from the public for the current year and each of the prior two calendar years that specifically relate to the bank's performance in helping to meet community credit needs, and any response to comments by the bank, will be available in the Public File, if neither the comments nor the response contain a statement that reflects adversely on the good name or reputation of any persons other than the bank of publication of which would violate specific provisions of the law.