Academic Events

Information Processing Costs and Retail Deposit Flows:

Evidence from the Release of Integrated Bank Social Performance Data

Prof. Yupeng Lin

National University of Singapore

Abstract:

In 2020, the Federal Reserve Board began releasing integrated data tables of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations and lending activities for randomly selected banks. We find that after the data release, affected banks with poor historical CRA ratings show lower growth in retail deposits, but not wholesale deposits. This contrasts with the lack of reaction to the initial release of poor CRA ratings among retail deposits, but a negative reaction among wholesale deposits. The decline in retail deposit growth following the data release is more pronounced for banks with higher negative information intensity and a greater proportion of deposits with high educational attainment and community involvement. While affected banks with poor historical ratings increase mortgage approvals in CRA assessment areas following the data release, this comes at the cost of lower credit quality. Overall, our findings suggest the importance of considering information processing costs in improving stakeholder involvement.

Keywords: bank social performance; retail deposit flows; information processing costs

JEL codes: D80, G21, M14