The federal banking agencies today released 2021 Community Reinvestment Act data on small-business, small-farm and community development lending. The CRA requires banks with more than $1.322 billion in assets to report data in these areas.
The 685 reporting banks originated or purchased 9.4 million small-business loans totaling $371 billion. The total number of loans originated by reporting banks increased by about 12.6% from 2020, the agencies said. Small-farm loan originations increased 26.4% year over year, while the total dollar amount decreased by 1.2%. About 47.1% of the reported small-business loans and 59.3% of reported farm loans were made to firms with less than $1 million in revenue.
A total of 618 banks reported community development lending activity totaling nearly $151 billion in 2021, a 10.1% decrease from the amount reported in 2020.
