Does a CRA overall rating of "needs to improve" prevent a bank from selling branches, or does it just prevent mergers, acquisistions and the establishment of new branches? Evidently this is a BOD test question....

A needs to improve rating could impact a branch sale. The bank will be reporting regularly while it has a needs to improve rating and if the impact of the branch sale is viewed as a further negative to the bank's CRA performance, well.....

You can see where that can lead.