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#456557 - 11/14/05 09:05 PM CRA Training
Anonymous
Unregistered

Does anyone have a CRA training outline or is anyone willing to share training techniques for CRA? I will be doing a training during this month and really do not know what to cover.

Thanks

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CRA
#456558 - 11/14/05 09:16 PM Re: CRA Training
Len S Offline
Diamond Poster
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,084
Connecticut
Start with understanding the basic principle of CRA - "meeting the need for credit services in the community". CRA is all about how well you do that and how you measure it. The next step would be to educate about the "performance context" factors that are the primary determinants of your CRA rating. If you are a large bank, you should review the 3 tests and their subcomponents. If you are an ISB, you should review the lending test and community development test. A small bank needs to know the elements of the lending test.
If you would like to discuss ideas, just pm me. I've run CRA training sessions for many banks, so I can give you some direction.
_________________________
CRA Exam Preparation, CRA Performance Evaluations, Key Performance Benchmarks, & maps

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#456559 - 11/14/05 10:14 PM Re: CRA Training
Anonymous
Unregistered

The training is going to be to lenders only. Do you have any suggestions that gear's itself toward that?

Thanks

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#456560 - 11/15/05 12:54 AM Re: CRA Training
Len S Offline
Diamond Poster
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,084
Connecticut
I assume you are referring to Commercial loan officers? My experience has been that most commercial loan officers have minimal understanding of CRA and are hostile to it because of their ignorance. If you can show them that CRA really is one way of measuring their performance and has significant benefits in the form of market data you will be over the first hurdle. Start out by showing their market rank and market share analysis and you'll be well on your way to getting more enthusiastic participation. I also would show them how some of your competitors are doing and how your bank compares. Then I would review the Test parameters (what size bank are you?). Explain the Lending tests (and community development especially). Then focus on data integrity and why it is mandatory- what is a small business loan and what is not, etc. Get your hands on the Dallas Fed CRA Data Collection Grid whihc is a really useful document that will help organize how different types of loans fit into CRA. Can you get your hands on the CRA reported loan data for each officer last year? That would really hit home by showing them how their actual efforts affected bank performance last year.
How familiar are you with CRA? Do you feel comfortable with your knowledge of the Act?
_________________________
CRA Exam Preparation, CRA Performance Evaluations, Key Performance Benchmarks, & maps

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#456561 - 11/15/05 02:16 PM Re: CRA Training
Anonymous
Unregistered

That sounds like a great idea. However, I do not think we have data about each loan officer. Unfortunately, all of our reports are from our LR. I am comfortable with my knowlege of the Act. I serve on the CRA committee and have audited the lending function.

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#456562 - 11/16/05 10:27 PM Re: CRA Training
Anonymous
Unregistered

My experiance with commercial loan officers is that their hostility towards CRA stems from their belief that their job is to make loans, not to gather statistical information for the government. Of course, I always tend to be more sympathetic towards commercial loan officers, since I am one in training. For the time being though, I also have compliance training and monitoring duties.

When I train on CRA, I go a little bit into the bigger picture about what CRA is for, but mostly I try to focus on how CRA effects the loan officers I'm training. We spend a lot of time going over scenarios and identifying when specific loan transactions are and are not reportable. As much as possible I try to use examples that have acutally popped in the department, so I would agree with Len that it would be beneficial if you could find a few loans from the people you are training to use as examples. Much (but not all) of the hostility went away when they had a better handle on what was expected of them, and they weren't getting nailed for CRA violations all of the time. Which I guess is just a nicer way of saying they are less hostile when they are less ignorant!

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#456563 - 11/17/05 03:16 PM Re: CRA Training
LoisLane Offline
Diamond Poster
LoisLane
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,570
Wisteria Lane..
One time I did a CRA training program formatted like an interview on the Johnny Carson show (it was a lonnnng time ago). I got the idea from an ABA magazine article. "Johnny" interviewed a CRA officer and the Q&As covered the requirements in a light way.
_________________________
And where is Superman when I need him?

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