In their comments on the proposed revisions to the rules, bankers and community organizations generally agreed that the fundamental elements of the regulations were sound and that the agencies should maintain the overall structure of the 1995 regulations, although each group raised a number of specific issues.
Findings from the research by Board staff members, in combination with the public comments, led the agencies to propose new definitions for "small" banks, which would be subject only to a lending test to assess compliance with the CRA, and for "intermediate small" banks, which would be subject to a lending test as well as a new and more-flexible community development test (Avery, Canner, Mok, and Sokolov, 2005).