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...
Continue ReadingAre 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...
Continue Reading(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...
Continue ReadingAre 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 pick...
Continue ReadingAt 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...
Continue ReadingIf 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. ...
Continue ReadingThe 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: • Worldw...
Continue ReadingThe 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 unio...
Continue ReadingAs 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...
Continue ReadingHow 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...
Continue ReadingRunning 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 ...
Continue ReadingYour 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...
Continue ReadingAll 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? In this dated but still relevant...
Continue ReadingAre 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...
Continue ReadingIf 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...
Continue ReadingThe 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...
Continue ReadingAn 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...
Continue ReadingAre you looking for ways to get CRA credit for your financial institution? With so many possible activities and so few details about what counts for CRA credit, it can be difficult to figure out which activities will be the most ben...
Continue ReadingWho exactly is responsible for your bank’s CRA program? If you said “the CRA Officer,” I want to challenge your thinking on that. You should consider your bank’s CRA program to be the responsibility of every employee in your company...
Continue ReadingEver wish you could find a way to multiply your financial institution’s impact on the community and improve your CRA performance? Equity Equivalent Investments might be just what you need! Equity Equivalent Investments, or EQ2s, a...
Continue ReadingThanks for your interest in Kadince software. I’ll email you a proposal within two (2) Kadince business hours (sometime before ).