New tools to fight discrimination in housing.

I'm David Brankhatcha, U.S. financial regulators have just made big changes to fair lending

rules.

The Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency in the

last day have all approved changes to the Community Reinvestment Act.

Marketplace's Washington correspondent Nancy Marshall Gensert joins us now.

Good morning.

Good morning.

The Community Reinvestment Act.

That's from 1977.

Yes, it is, David, and it was designed to stop the damage from redlining.

For years, the Federal Government discouraged banks from offering mortgages to black borrowers,

and there were even red lines drawn on maps around neighborhoods that banks were supposed

to avoid.

The Community Reinvestment Act required banks to serve the communities where they had physical

branches offering things like mortgages to everyone in those areas.

I've seen those old maps with the red lines.

So now what's intended to be a new and improved CRA because banks don't just have physical

branches now, right?

Exactly.

So the new final rule includes the business banks do online.

So we're talking about things like mobile lending.

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