Kadince Blog

By Jaidyn Crookston | December 06, 2022 | 8 Minute Read

Your CRA exam is finally over. (Longest 2–3 months of your life, right?)   First of all, take a deep breath. Pat yourself on the back. The last several months have been a stressful blur of paperwork, examiners, and “why didn’t thi...

By Jaidyn Crookston | September 13, 2022 | 11 Minute Read

If you’ve ever had a brilliant idea at work before, you know that gathering support for it can be hard. Not everyone is going to love your idea, and even those who do may be hesitant to throw their support behind you. But if you wan...

By Jaidyn Crookston | August 09, 2022 | 10 Minute Read

You’ve probably heard the term before: community development loan mining. Ugh. What a chore.    But as a CRA Officer or CRA Analyst, it’s your job to identify all CRA-eligible loans originated by your bank.    But that doesn’t m...

By Jaidyn Crookston | April 26, 2022 | 8 Minute Read

Traditionally, preparing for a CRA exam has been a long, frustrating process. There’s so much to do, and CRA Officers often don’t have the support they need to do it all. Instead of spending week upon endless week preparing for your...

By Jaidyn Crookston | March 22, 2022 | 7 Minute Read

Are you part of a small CRA team? Many CRA departments are made up of only one or two people, and this makes it difficult to get everything done.    You’ve been charged with meeting the credit needs of your community, which means tr...

By Jaidyn Crookston | January 04, 2022 | 9 Minute Read

(Don't forget to download the free PDF, "26 Questions to Ask Yourself When Building Your CRA Plan for the New Year." This list of questions will help you think about your CRA program and build the perfect plan to promote your progra...

By Jaidyn Crookston | December 21, 2021 | 10 Minute Read

Are you preparing for your next CRA exam? If you are, or you will be soon, you’d probably love to get the inside scoop on how an examiner thinks about an exam.    Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sit down with a CRA examiner and pic...

By Linda Ezuka | November 18, 2021 | 4 Minute Read

At some point in your journey as a Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) officer, you’ll likely find yourself involved in a community-based public-private partnership economic development project. When this happens, your bank may have th...

By Jaidyn Crookston | November 02, 2021 | 6 Minute Read

If you struggle to engage bank employees in your CRA program, you aren’t alone. Just like most financial institutions, Seacoast Bank used to find it hard to engage employees and spread the word about their community initiatives.    ...

By Jaidyn Crookston | October 26, 2021 | 7 Minute Read

The information in this article came from our webinar with Linda Ezuka of CRA Today, Sue Kocsis from Pinnacle Bank, and Nick Hammerstad from Banzai.    Why is financial literacy so important?Take a look at these statistics:   • Worl...

By Jaidyn Crookston | October 19, 2021 | 6 Minute Read

The ideas in this article came from a webinar with Sarah Baharin, VP, Fair Lending/CRA Officer at North American Savings Bank, and Zina Stankewsky at PCs for People. You can access the webinar recording here.    Banks and credit uni...

By Linda Ezuka | October 07, 2021 | 5 Minute Read

As a CRA officer, you know how important it is to get consideration under the CRA for as many loans, services, and investments as possible. This means that some banks like to include their consumer loans under their lending performa...

By Linda Ezuka | September 23, 2021 | 6 Minute Read

How did your last CRA exam go? Did it run perfectly smoothly? Did you hand your CRA examiners your self-assessment, shake hands, and tell them you’ll see them next exam?    Probably not. Chances are it was a hectic week of pulling r...

By Linda Ezuka | September 16, 2021 | 4 Minute Read

Running a CRA program is difficult during the best of times. And when it’s time for a CRA exam, your job only gets more stressful.    But when you have a clear picture of what’s expected of you, your exam can be a lot easier.    In ...

By Linda Ezuka | September 09, 2021 | 3 Minute Read

Your bank is steadfast in meeting the credit needs of all businesses, both large and small, in your communities. Your job is to capture and identify all eligible community development activities going into a regulatory exam. But wha...

By Linda Ezuka | September 02, 2021 | 5 Minute Read

All successful programs have support from the top, and CRA isn’t any different! It’s important to keep your bank board and executive management briefed on your CRA program. But how do you do this?    According to Eric Rosengren and ...

By Linda Ezuka | August 19, 2021 | 6 Minute Read

Are you ready for your next CRA exam? If you’re like most CRA professionals, preparing for a CRA exam is a never-ending process. One way to make this process a little more manageable is by creating a CRA self-assessment. Most CRA of...

By Linda Ezuka | August 12, 2021 | 3 Minute Read

If you don’t have a large CRA team, haven’t had much training, or just inherited your bank’s CRA program, you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed. It’s hard to run a CRA program during the best of times, but it may seem impossi...

By Jaidyn Crookston | August 03, 2021 | 13 Minute Read

The ideas in this article came from our webinar with Janice DeLima from Norway Savings Bank. You can access the webinar recording here.    Many banks are happy with a Satisfactory CRA rating. In fact, many banks don’t even try to ge...

By Jaidyn Crookston | July 22, 2021 | 6 Minute Read

An estimated 80% of banks underreport their community development loans. This means that 80% of banks are under-representing their CRA lending performance, which puts their CRA ratings at risk.     The lending portion of the CRA exa...