The CRA instructs federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage the institutions that they regulate to help the communities in which they are chartered to meet their credit needs, while also conforming to “safe and sound” standards. In practice, regulators measure the volume of lending to CRA target tracts – poor areas with median income less than 80% of the median income of the local community – as well as to low-income and minority borrowers in non-CRA tracts to verify compliance with the Act.