Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) announced nearly $25 million in awards to 119 banks for increasing investments benefiting economically distressed communities across the nation. The awards were made through the fiscal year (FY) 2018 round of the Bank Enterprise Award Program (BEA Program).
The BEA Program is a performance-based grant program that provides monetary awards to FDIC-insured depository institutions that successfully demonstrate an increase in their investments in mission-driven lenders, known as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), or in the depository institutions’ own lending, investing, or service activities in highly distressed communities.
“These banks are lending in the most highly distressed communities – where at least 30 percent live at or below the national poverty level and where the unemployment rate is at least 1.5 times the national average,” said CDFI Fund Director Annie Donovan. “This round, BEA Program award recipients provided $56.9 million in equity investments, loans, certificates of deposit and/or technical assistance to 53 certified CDFIs, which is nearly 2.5 times the amount provided the last round.”
Collectively, during the one-year assessment period, these 119 depository institutions increased their loans and investments in distressed communities by nearly $578 million; increased their loans, deposits, and technical assistance to CDFIs by $38.6 million; increased their equity and equity-like loans and grants to CDFIs by $16.7 million; and increased the provision of financial services in highly distressed communities by $6.8 million.
Furthering this impact, the nearly $25 million awarded today will be re-invested into highly distressed communities, as well as CDFIs. Of the 119 depository institutions awarded funding, 86 have committed to deploying approximately $3.4 million, or13.6 percent of award dollars, in Persistent Poverty Counties which exceeds the Congressional mandate of 10 percent. Under the FY 2018 round of the BEA Program, the CDFI Fund received 124 applications from FDIC-insured depository institutions across the nation that requested $218.1 million in funding, the highest amount requested in program history.
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