available to communities from public subsidies and tax credit programs that are targeted to lower - income people. in just the past two years, banks have reported making over $ 120 billion in community development loans nationwide. 2 this figure does not capture the full extent of such lending, because smaller institutions are not required to report community development loans to their regulators. evidence on cra and the subprime crisis over the years, the federal reserve has prepared two reports for the congress that provide information on the performance of lending to lower - income borrowers or neighborhoods – populations that are the focus of the cra. 3 these studies found that lending to lower - income individuals and communities has been nearly as profitable and performed similarly to other types of lending done by cra - covered institutions. thus, the long - term evidence shows that the cra has not pushed banks into extending loans that perform out of line with their traditional businesses. rather, the law has encouraged banks to be aware of lending opportunities in all segments of their local communities as well as to learn how to undertake such lending in a safe and sound manner. recently, federal reserve staff has undertaken more specific analysis focusing on the potential relationship between the cra and the current subprime crisis. this analysis was performed for the purpose of assessing claims that the cra was a principal cause of the current mortgage market difficulties. for this analysis, the staff examined lending activity covering the period that corresponds to the height of the subprime boom. 4 the research focused on two basic questions. first, we asked what share of originations for subprime loans is related to the cra. the potential role of the cra in the subprime crisis could either be large or small, depending on the answer to this question. we found that the loans that are the focus of the cra represent a very small portion of the subprime lending market, casting considerable doubt on the potential contribution that the law could have made to the subprime mortgage crisis. second, we asked how cra - related subprime loans performed relative to other loans. once again, the potential role of the cra could be large or small, depending on the answer to this question. we found that delinquency rates were high in all neighborhood income groups, and that cra - related subprime loans performed in a comparable manner to other subprime loans ; as such, differences in performance between cra - related subprime lending and other subpr

as implementation of the community reinvestment act and expansion of our oversight of foreign banks operating in the us pursuant to the foreign bank supervision enhancement act of 1991 ) the congress assigns to us. to carry out this multi - faceted mission, the congress established a highly decentralized federal reserve system with a complex governance structure. leadership and direction are vested in the board of governors, but only about 1, 700 staff ( out of about 24, 900 ) work for the board in washington. the regional reserve banks carry out the bulk of operations and have substantial autonomy. as a result, planning and resource allocation at the federal reserve have historically been quite decentralized, and major changes have required painstaking consensus building across the board / bank structure. the regional structure of the federal reserve is one of its great strengths. the twelve regional federal banks work closely with the banks in their region and are closely tied into their regional economies. the development of federal reserve policy is greatly enriched by the in - depth knowledge that the regional banks have of the industrial, agricultural and financial forces shaping different parts of the economy. the challenge confronting strategic planning at the federal reserve is to find a balance between decentralized regional planning, which preserves the strengths of the regional structure, and the need for a more comprehensive national plan aimed at increasing efficiency by rationalizing the allocation of resources across regions and functions. in recent years, major changes have occurred in the allocation of federal reserve resources in response to unfolding events. when serious problems developed in the banking industry in the 1980s and in response to increased supervisory responsibility for foreign banking entities, more federal reserve resources were channeled into supervision and regulation. rapidly changing technology, especially telecommunications and automation, has revolutionized federal reserve operations and required considerable investment in hardware, software and expertise. consolidation of the banking industry, evolution of payment systems patterns and technology, growth in derivatives, globalization of financial services, concerns about equal credit opportunity and fair housing issues, efforts to reduce systemic risk in the payments area, and changes in monetary aggregates, have all caused planning and resource adjustments. rapid technological change has also created opportunities for system - wide efficiencies resulting from consolidation of activities in one or more reserve banks. a number of the twelve regional banks have developed specialized activities serving other regions. for example, federal reserve automation services ( fras ) is headquartered in richmond, but provides mainframe data processing and data communications services to all parts of the system. this consolidation and specialization has enabled the reserve banks