Agencies Release 2020 CRA Data on Small Biz, Community Development Lending

The federal banking agencies today released 2020 Community Reinvestment Act data on small business, small farm and community development lending. The CRA requires banks with more than $1.305 billion in assets to report data in these areas.

The 687 reporting banks originated or purchased 8.4 million small business loans totaling $461.8 billion. The total number of loans originated by reporting banks increased by about 9.7% from 2019, due largely to the Paycheck Protection Program, the agencies said. Small-farm loan originations fell by about 1.7% year-on-year, while the total dollar amount increased by 7.9%. About 40.7% of the reported small-business loans and 56.3% of reported farm loans were made to firms with less than $1 million in revenue.

A total of 621 banks reported community development lending activity totaling nearly $169 billion in 2020, a 52% increase from the amount reported in 2019, again largely attributable to PPP lending since many PPP loans that did not meet requirements for CRA small-business loan reporting qualified for community development reporting.

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