Finance & economics | Redefining helpful finance

Rules on bank lending in poor neighbourhoods are being rethought

America’s Community Reinvestment Act is sensitive, but still up for revision

|NEW YORK

THE document is dry, dusted with references to “benchmarks”, “performance evaluation” and “a metric-based framework”. But the 25 pages published on August 28th by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of America’s federal bank regulators, may start a protracted dispute over lenders’ obligations to poor neighbourhoods and hence to racial minorities.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Another equity debate”

Peak Valley: Why startups are going elsewhere

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