Stephen Neal: “I just want to point out that the bill, H.R. 3841, already contains many important consumer provisions. It preserves…”

“I just want to point out that the bill, H.R. 3841, already contains many important consumer provisions. It preserves State branching, consumer protection, fair lending, and community reinvestment laws as they apply to interstate branches. In a February 22 letter to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Donald Riegle, consumer groups praised H.R. 3841's applicable State law provision, noting that the ``legislation in the House, now pending before the Banking Committee, contains the safeguards consumers need and have come to expect in the marketplace.'' It requires a State-by-State application of the Community Reinvestment Act. H.R. 3841 would require that each State-by-State CRA evaluation of an interstate bank be further subdivided to report on the bank's CRA performance in each metropolitan area in which it maintains branches, and in the nonmetropolitan portions of a State if the bank maintains branches in nonmetropolitan areas. The bill requires forward commitments for interstate consolidations which would recapture some of the banks' savings from consolidations for local communities. The bill requires a bank that plans to consolidate multistate groups of banks into a single network of branches to submit a plan to meet local credit needs. The bill prohibits deposit production offices by taking steps to ensure that interstate branching will not lead to the siphoning of deposits out of communities.”