- Introduction
- What Is the Community Reinvestment Act?
- Looking at Your Bank's CRA Performance—The Big Picture
- Standards Used to Evaluate Your Bank's CRA Performance
- Your Bank's Overall CRA Rating
- What Your Bank's Public CRA File Must Show
- Where You Can Find Your Bank's CRA Public File
- How You Can Comment on Your Bank's CRA Performance
Looking at Your Bank's CRA Performance - the Big Picture

Before examiners from financial regulatory agencies can judge your bank's CRA performance, they need to get a general sense of your community and how your bank fits into it. They consider a number of factors, including but not limited to
- the makeup of the community;
- what the local and regional economic conditions are;
- what kind of opportunities exist for serving the community through lending and investments;
- what your bank's business strategy and products are;
- how your bank is doing financially;
- what CRA rating your bank has received in the past and, sometimes, how other local institutions have been doing;
- what your bank sees as the credit needs of its community; and
- what individuals, community and civic organizations, and businesses—as well as state, local, and tribal governments—think about your bank's efforts toward meeting the community's credit needs.