The Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund today announced more than $25 million in awards to 113 banks through its Bank Enterprise Awards program, which encourages banks to increase their investments and loans in disadvantaged communities. The BEA program is the only program to which CDFI banks have had regular access in recent years; ABA has strongly advocated for increased BEA program funding.
Collectively, during the one-year assessment period leading up to the awards, the 113 BEA recipients increased loans and investments in distressed communities by $362.2 million. Of this year’s BEA recipients, 81 have committed to deploying approximately $3.7 million, or 14.8% of award dollars, in counties with persistent poverty—exceeding the program’s congressional mandate of 10%. Read more.
