Two of the most serious faults of the bill with respect to CRA are the limited oversight of small banks and thrifts and a sunshine provision that requires annual reports of CRA agreements to Federal banking agencies.

Small banks and thrifts are now examined every two years. But with the passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, these institutions (with assets under $250 million) will now be examined every four or five years. There exists 8,600 small banks and thrifts in urban and rural areas which are 80 percent of all banks and thrifts. NCRC says: "Small banks will become adept at gaming the CRA process. They will relax their CRA lending in underserved communities for four years, and then hustle to make loans the last year before a 'twice in a decade' CRA exam."

While the sunshine provision requires banks and community groups to report their CRA agreements (bank commitments and pledges to provide loans and investments to minority communities) annually to Federal agencies, the Federal agencies are prohibited from following up to see if the banks are indeed fulfilling their promises. According to NCRC, "In its recent approval order of the Fleet-BankBoston merger, the Federal Reserve Board stated that Fleet's compliance with its $14.6 billion pledge will be monitored in future CRA exams. This type of follow-through by regulatory agencies will be stopped by the sunshine provision. Without accountability to meet goals established in CRA agreements, banks can announce grand sums of reinvestment and then fail to actually make the loans and investments." In addition, NCRC asserts: "By requiring special reporting requirements only of those groups which comment on applications and the CRA records of banks, this bill provides a disincentive for community groups to participate in the CRA process."