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The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development
Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) is seeking comments from the general
public, including Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs),
community development practitioners and investors, and other federal agencies,
on the requirements to achieve and maintain certification as a CDFI. The
Request for Information (RFI) will be published in the Federal Register later
this week.
Since the CDFI Fund was established in 1994 and the first
CDFIs certified in 1997, the universe of certified CDFIs has grown to more than
1,000—with collective assets totaling more than $100 billion and headquarters
in all fifty states and several territories.
With this RFI, the CDFI Fund is embarking on a holistic review of its
CDFI certification tests to ensure they accurately reflect and assess the evolving
diversity of Community Development Financial Institutions and the communities they
serve.
During the past two decades, the significance of CDFI
certification has increased. Not only does certification make an entity
eligible for various programs at the CDFI Fund, it has also begun to serve as a
qualifier to access certain other Federal government programs. It is important to emphasize that the CDFI
Fund does not operate in a regulatory capacity. However, as CDFI access to
programs outside of the CDFI Fund’s purview continues to expand, it is
important to ensure that certification continues to accurately verify an organization’s
commitment to a community development mission.
The RFI seeks
feedback from the public on certain aspects of the certification criteria and
process. These include how the primary
mission test should be met; what the criteria should be for serving Investment
Areas and Targeted Populations; and how a CDFI should demonstrate
accountability to its Target Market, among other topics.
The CDFI Fund intends to consider the feedback received through
this RFI as it reexamines its current CDFI certification criteria. In order to
be considered, all comments must be submitted in writing by 60 days after the
date of publication of the Federal Register notice to David Meyer,
Certification, Compliance Monitoring and Evaluation (CCME) Manager, CDFI Fund,
at cdfihelp@cdfi.treas.gov.
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