If we purchase into a SBA Pool that is comprised of the SBA guaranteed portion of loans originated & sold by other banks and aggregated into a Pool, can we count this as a community development investment under Q&A .23(a)-2?

The Pools could be collateralized by loans throughout the country, including our state.

Thanks.

Are these pools comprised of 7A loans or 504 loans? 504 loans are Community Development loans since they are deemed to be that in the Q&A. However, you would really need to review how many loans are in your Assessment Area before assuming the "benefit to a greater area including the Assessment Area" angle will fly during an exam. If the loans are SBA 7A loans, than most likely you will have a hard time proving the Community Development benefit - at least that has been my experience.

There are investment brokers that know how to create SBA loan pools that satisfy CRA Community Development criteria. Since this forum is in the Public section of the Banker Forums, I don't want to name a specific vendor, but you can Google "SBA loan pools for CRA" and locate some of the vendors.