HarborOne Bank Earns Highest Possible Rating For Community Service, Lending, Investment
August 2, 2021
(BROCKTON, MA) – August 2, 2021 - HarborOne Bank, for the second consecutive Community Investment Act (CRA) review, has earned an “Outstanding” rating by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The rating is the result of a rigorous analysis of the bank’s lending, community commitment, customer relations, outreach to impacted and underserved communities, and work with charitable organizations in its service area in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
“The ‘Outstanding’ rating for the bank is a testament to the men and women who work for HarborOne and year after year put their customers, and their community, first,” said James Blake, CEO of HarborOne. “It recognizes not only our loans and charitable giving to impacted communities, but also the hours HarborOne employees put in as volunteers, as non-profit board members, and in financial education. It is a recognition all banks aspire to, and few achieve.”
For more than 40 years, the FDIC has rated banks on a series of metrics aimed at determining whether institutions are playing a constructive community role, particularly in regard to low- and moderate-income lending, small business loans, job creation initiatives and charitable grants and donations. According to the FDIC data, less than 10 percent of all banks nationally receive an “Outstanding” CRA rating, and even fewer receive “Outstanding” ratings on all three components (Community Service, Lending, and Investment) of the Community Reinvestment Act review.
In analyzing the bank’s performance from December 2017 to January 2021, the FDIC praised HarborOne for “innovative and flexible” home and business loan strategies that enabled low- and moderate-income borrowers to buy homes and expand businesses in all areas that the bank serves. The CRA evaluators cited HarborOne’s issuance of 4,532 loans totaling $945.9 million that “benefitted low- to moderate-income individuals and small businesses.”
“The red-hot real estate market right now makes it imperative that banks find creative ways to provide funding to low-income and moderate-income families and individuals who otherwise could be shut out of home ownership – we are proud of our record of doing just that,” said Joseph Casey, HarborOne President.
The CRA evaluation also praised HarborOne for community development loans spurring affordable housing construction, small business loans that drove job creation, and the bank’s “leadership in financial education and community outreach.”
Finally, in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts HarborOne was recognized by the evaluators for extensive targeted grants and donations aiding programs for the homeless, for youth, for nutrition and for the elderly.
