SOUTH
BRONX NY,
March 30, 2013
-- In
the first
study of the
just-released
2012 mortgage
lending data,
Inner City
Press and
Bronx-based
Fair Finance
Watch have
found that
the Big Four
banking
behemoths Citigroup, JPMorgan
Chase, Bank of
America
and Wells
Fargo
continued with
high cost
loans and
disparities by
race and
ethnicity in
denials and
higher-cost
lending.
2012 is the
ninth year in
which the
data
distinguishes
which loans
are higher
cost, over a
federally-defined
rate spread of
1.5 percent
over Treasury
bill
yields.
The just
released data
show that
Citigroup
confined
African
Americans to
higher-cost
loans above
this
rate spread
2.09 times
more
frequently
than whites in
2012, Fair
Finance Watch
has found.
Citigroup
confined
Latinos to
higher-cost
loans above
the rate
spread 1.83
times more
frequently
than whites in
2012, the data
show.
“Even
after the
bailouts,
lending
disparities
grew worse and
not better,"
said Fair
Finance Watch.
"Regulatory
laxity, at
least on fair
lending, has
continued
despite the
financial
meltdown
caused by
predatory
lending."
For JPMorgan
Chase, the
disparity for
African
Americans in
2012 was 1.7;
for Bank of
America it was
1.61;
for the
largest of
Wells Fargo's
many HMDA data
reporters, the
disparity for
African
Americans in
2011 was a
whopping 2.32.
"The Federal
Reserve is
becoming
more and more
bank-friendly,
including with
recent Freedom
of
Information
Act appeal
denials by
Governor Jay
Powell,
formerly a
hedge funder
and Deutsche
Bank official
Jay Powell. It
remains
unclear if the
Consumer
Financial
Protection
Bureau will
get to this
problem," Fair
Finance Watch
continued.
"The
disparities in
the 2012
mortgage data
of these banks
further
militate for
aggressively
watchdogging
and breaking
up these
banks."
Instead, the
Fed allowed
the creation
of a fifth
mega-bank in
Capital One
when it acquired
ING DIRECT
and
the subprime
assets of
HSBC.
In
2012, Fair
Finance Watch
has found,
fully 9.93
percent of
Capital One's
mortgage loans
to African
American
were higher
cost loans,
versus 7.61
percent of
Capital One's
loans to
whites. To
Latinos, the
percentage was
even higher:
10.31 percent.
And so Fair
Finance Watch
and Inner
City Press
have
re-doubled
watchdogging.
Challenged by
the groups in
2012 and still
pending, with
FOIA
issues,
are
applications
by Customers
Bancorp and by
M&T,
to acquire
Hudson City
Savings Bank.
Regulators had
allowed Hudson
City
in 2011, for
conventional
home purchase
loans in the
New York City
Metropolitan
Statistical
Area, to make
765 such loans
to whites and
only FIVE to
African
Americans (and
only 44 to
Latinos).
Meanwhile,
Hudson City
denied the
applications
of African
Americans 3.21
times
more
frequently
then those of
whites.
In
March 2013
Inner City
Press and
Fair Finance
Watch began a
challenge to
Investors
Bancorp's
application to
acquire Roma.
In the NYC MSA
in 2011 for
conventional
home purchase
loans,
Investors Bank
made 220 such
loans to
whites,
and only TWO
such loans to
African
Americans. Its
denial rate
for
Latinos was
FIVE TIMES
higher than
for whites.
The Home
Mortgage
Disclosure Act
required that
the 2012 data
be provided by
March 31,
following
March
1 joint
requests by
Fair Finance
Watch and
Inner City
Press. Several
banks did not
provide their
data by the
deadline,
despite
confirming
receipt of the
request.
Further
studies will
follow: watch
this site.
, 
