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OCC retools Project Reach at summit, launching ‘Reach 2’ to incubate place‑based projects and tech solutions
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Summary
At a summit convened by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Acting Comptroller Michael Hsu and industry, nonprofit and community leaders reviewed Project Reach’s four years of pilots and announced Reach 2—an incubator model focused on place‑based initiatives, underserved populations, technology and tools to scale financial‑inclusion projects.
Acting Comptroller Michael Hsu opened the Project Reach summit by urging participants to preserve the initiative’s founding energy while pivoting to a new operating model he called “Reach 2.” The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will continue to convene banks, community lenders, civil‑rights groups and technology firms but will shift toward incubator‑style working groups focused on discrete projects with clear beginnings and exits.
"When Project Reach was started in 2020, it was in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd," Hsu said, tying the program’s origin to the national push to address economic disparities. He described three priorities for the summit—revisiting Project Reach’s roots, cataloging successes and mapping the future—and argued that the next phase must move from perpetual committees to time‑boxed projects that can be tested, scaled and graduated.
Why it matters: Project Reach has served as the regulator‑led convening space where large banks, minority depository institutions (MDIs), CDFIs, fintechs and advocacy groups pilot programs such as special purpose credit programs and alternative underwriting. Participants at the summit argued Reach 2 is intended to preserve the convening power of the OCC while accelerating pilots into operational, place‑based solutions.
What Reach 2 will do: Hsu laid out four working groups—place‑based initiatives, underserved and disadvantaged populations, technology, and tools/products/services—that will act like incubators. Projects will be evaluated against three criteria: (1) potential for measurable reduction of barriers to financial inclusion, (2) suitability for early‑stage pilot work (pre‑policy), and (3) dependence on cross‑sector collaboration that would not happen without Project Reach’s convening power.
Panelists described early examples that motivate the relaunch: coordinated neighborhood investments in Detroit and Milwaukee that pooled bank and philanthropic capital, homeownership pilots that bundle counseling with down‑payment assistance, and experiments that feed deposit and alternative data into underwriting pipelines for people without traditional credit files. Several speakers warned that political and legal pushback could cause partners to retreat and urged the sector to remain committed to earlier promises.
"We need to shift to a more flexible, decentralized, bottom‑up structure," Hsu said, explaining why the OCC will staff and steward working groups but rely on cross‑sector partners to design and execute projects. Organizers said Reach 2 will emphasize measurable project plans, coordinated technical assistance, and explicit exit criteria so successful pilots can be institutionalized or spun out.
What's next: Organizers said working groups will begin mapping existing projects into the new structure, hold follow‑up working sessions, and publish prospectuses and project plans after the summit. The OCC and partners signaled that the emphasis for the coming year is on building frameworks, testing pilot projects in specific places, and improving the data and governance needed to scale responsible technology and underwriting approaches.
