Stop Bank Branch Closings and
Monopolies in the Katrina Zone, Group Says, Challenging Regions- AmSouth
Merger
Birmingham,
Alabama, August 20 -- A year after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, two of the largest banks in the Katrina Zone
have applied to merge and save $400 million, in part by closing
branches. With the Federal Reserve's comment period on the application
by Regions Financial Corporation to acquire AmSouth running through
September 14, and the two banks' shareholders' votes set for October 3,
consumers and human rights group Fair Finance Watch has filed a fifteen
page protest to the deal, requesting public hearings including on what
it calls the Katrina Zone issues.
The challenge represents the first analysis of the 2005 data of Regions
Financial's Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data-reporting affiliates,
including the subprime specialist Equifirst, cumulating these lenders as
Regions and calculating the distribution of loans over the
Federally-defined rate spread of 3% over comparable Treasury securities
on first lien loans, 5% on subordinate liens (calling these high cost
loans).
The Fair Finance Watch analysis shows that in its home state of Alabama
in 2005, Regions confined 51.66% of its African American borrowers to
higher cost loans over the rate spread, versus only 23.15% of its white
borrowers. That is, Regions confined African Americans to high cost
loans 2.23 times more frequently than whites, while denying 30.69%
African Americans' applications for loans, versus only 21.29% of whites'
applications.
Regions
NY self-cheering
In Louisiana in 2005, Regions confined 54.92% of its African American
borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate spread, versus only 27.88%
of its white borrowers. Regions confined African Americans to high cost
loans 1.97 times more frequently than whites, while denying 30.71%
African Americans' applications for loans, versus only 22.27% of whites'
applications.
In neighboring Mississippi, Regions in 2005 confined 38% of its African
American borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate spread, versus
only 18.38% of its white borrowers. Regions confined African Americans
to high cost loans 2.07 times more frequently than whites, while denying
35.87% African Americans' applications for loans, versus only 24.68% of
whites' applications.
Throughout Mississippi and their other footprint states, the banks have
been asking community groups and charities to write letters of support,
including references to a Community Reinvestment Act pledge the two
banks announced. The Fair Finance Watch comments argue that given the
high percentage of Regions' mortgages which are high-cost, the pledge
may represent a promise of predatory lending.
While Fair Finance Watch has focused the regulators on these three
Katrina Zone states, nationwide in 2005 Regions confined fully 73.55% of
its African American borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate
spread, versus only 51.78% of its white borrowers. In Florida in 2005,
Regions confined 66.97% of its African American borrowers to higher cost
loans over the rate spread, compared to 45.98% of its white borrowers.
And in North Carolina, the headquarters of Regions' subprime unit
Equifirst, Regions in 2005 confined a whopping 88.76% of its African
American borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate spread, versus
71.66% of its white borrowers.
Regions and AmSouth have continued supporting other subprime lenders.
Uniform Commercial Code filings filed by Fair Finance Watch show for
example that Regions on July 18, 2005, made a loan secured by all
"accounts and proceeds" to Eagle Title Loans, Inc. of Athens, Alabama.
Also in Alabama, Regions lends to Twin States Pawn of Butler and Boaz'
Sand Mountain Pawn. In Louisiana, Regions lends to LA Pawn Shop of West
Monroe. In Arkansas, Regions lends to A-1 Pawn of Russellville. In the
Sunshine State, Regions lends to Deerfield Pawn Brokers of Deerfield,
Florida.
The issue of banks funding such fringe financiers is one that's in
evolution. In response to similar comments from Fair Finance Watch, the
Atlanta-based bank SunTrust
committed to stop lending to auto
pawn and payday lenders.
AmSouth, which Fair Finance Watch says refused to provide its mortgage
data in computer analyzable form, lent to Rent to Own Pasco of Pasco,
FL, and Pasco Jewelry and Pawn in the same city. The Fair Finance Watch
comment conclude that "while the merger should be denied on all of the
above grounds, any merger of this size in the still-unrepaired and
underbanked zone impacted by last year's hurricanes militates for a
required Katrina Zone CRA Lending Plan, and for public hearings."
How this call for hearings will fare, in the face of the letters of
support solicited by the banks, remains to be seen. But the need to
focus on economic justice in the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina is hard
to dismiss if one looks at the region, so to speak, in this one-year
anniversary of disregard and destruction.
JPMChase to Close Four Branches in Low and
Moderate Income Tracts
BRONX, NY,
May 18 -- JPMorgan Chase has today for the first time specified
that it has identified in low- and moderate-income census tracts four of
the Bank of New York branches it seeks to acquire "which are located
close to a JPMCB branch." This is essentially code language that these
four low-income branches would be closed if the acquisition is approved.
JPM Chase's statement, in a May 18 letter responding to
Fair Finance Watch's
April 17 and May 6 comments
to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, declines to provide
the addresses of these four branches and the 46 other branches, some
surely adjacent to low-income tracts, which the letter projects would be
closed. The figure "four LMI branches" is qualified by the statement "in
New York City." Since many of Bank of New York's branches are outside of
the five boroughs, might even more than four low- and moderate-income
census tract branches be closed? Developing...
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At the UN, Dow
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Kofi Annan
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At the UN,
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At the UN
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At the UN
Wordsmiths Are At Work on Zimbabwe, Kony, Ivory Coast and Iran
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At
the UN, New Phrase Passes Resolution called Gangster-Like by North Korea; UK
Deputy on the Law(less)
UN's Guehenno
Speaks of "Political Overstretch" Undermining Peacekeeping in Lower
Profile Zones
In Gaza Power
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Sources
At UN, North
Korean Knot Attacked With Fifty Year Old Precedent, Game Continues Into
Weekend
UN's Corporate
Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with Microsoft, and
UNDP Continues
Gaza Resolution
Vetoed by U.S., While North Korea Faces Veto and Chechnya Unread
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Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations
Conflicts of
Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform Rifts
At the UN, A Day
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UN Grapples with
Somalia, While UNDP Funds Mugabe's Human Rights Unit, Without
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In North Korean
War of Words, Abuses in Uganda and Impunity Go Largely Ignored
On North Korea,
Blue Words Move to a Saturday Showdown, UNDP Uzbek Stonewall
As the World
Turns in Uganda and Korea, the UN Speaks only on Gaza, from Geneva
North Korea in
the UN: Large Arms Supplant the Small, and Confusion on Uganda
UN Gives Mugabe
Time with His Friendly Mediator, Refugees Abandoned
At the UN,
Friday Night's Alright for Fighting; Annan Meets Mugabe
UN Acknowledges
Abuse in Uganda, But What Did Donors Know and When? Kazakh Questions
In Uganda, UNDP
to Make Belated Announcement of Program Halt, But Questions Remain (and
see
The New Vision,
offsite).
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Abuse in Uganda Leads UN Agency to Suspend Its Work and Spending
Disarmament
Abuse in Uganda Blamed on UNDP, Still Silent on Finance
Alleged Abuse in
Disarmament in Uganda Known by UNDP, But Dollar Figures Still Not Given:
What Did UN Know and When?
Strong Arm on
Small Arms: Rift Within UN About Uganda's Involuntary Disarmament of
Karamojong Villages
UN in Denial on
Sudan, While Boldly Predicting the Future of Kosovo/a
UN's Selective
Vision on Somalia and Wishful Thinking on Uighurs
UN Habitat
Predicts The World Is a Ghetto, But Will Finance Be Addressed at
Vancouver World Urban Forum?
At the UN, a
Commando Unit to Quickly Stop Genocide is Proposed, by Diplomatic Sir
Brian Urquhart
UN's Annan
Concerned About Use of Terror's T-Word to Repress, Wants
Freedom of Information
UN Waffles on
Human Rights in Central Asia and China; ICC on Kony and a Hero from
Algiers
At the UN,
Internal Justice Needs Reform, While in Timor Leste, Has Evidence Gone
Missing?
UN & US,
Transparency for Finance But Not Foreign Affairs: Somalia, Sovereignty
and Senator Tom Coburn
In Bolton's Wake,
Silence and Speech at the UN, Congo and Kony, Let the Games Begin
Pro-Poor Talk and
a Critique of the World Trade Organization from a WTO Founder: In UN
Lull, Ugandan Fog and Montenegrin Mufti
Human Rights
Forgotten in UN's War of Words, Bolton versus Mark Malloch Brown: News
Analysis
In Praise of
Migration, UN Misses the Net and Bangalore While Going Soft on Financial
Exclusion
UN Sees Somalia
Through a Glass, Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and
Everything But Congo
AIDS Ends at the
UN? Side Deals on Patents, Side Notes on Japanese Corporations,
Salvadoran and Violence in Burundi
On AIDS at the
UN, Who Speaks and Who Remains Unseen
Corporate Spin on
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Kinshasa Election
Nightmares, from Ituri to Kasai. Au Revoir Allan Rock; the UN's
Belly-Dancing
Working with
Warlords, Insulated by Latrines: Somalia and Pakistan Addressed at the
UN
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
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Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
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The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
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