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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
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SOUTH BRONX / SDNY, June 12 – The proposed merger of Webster Financial Corp. and Sterling Bancorp has now been challenged, on disparate lending and regulatory evasions, first to the Federal Reserve and now the OCC.

  Fair Finance Watch has found that in 2019 in its home state of Connecticut, Webster National Bank made 3147 mortgage loans to whites, with 1364 denial to whites - while making only 71 loans to African Americans with fully 99 denials to African American. This is significantly worse than other banks in the state; the merger must be denied.

  Fair Finance Watch has found even worse disparities for Webster in New York, and on June 3 filed a formal protest with the Federal Reserve in DC and Boston, and then with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The comments and FOIA request (to the Fd) have been acknowledged. But still no formal response to the charges from Webster. Maybe to game the system they have snail mailed it? Watch this site.

Webster's record in New York State is even more disparate. In 2019 in NYS, Webster Bank based on its disparate marketing made 356 mortgage loans to whites, with 178 denial to whites - while making only EIGHT loans to African Americans with fully 10 denials to African American. 

Webster has also under performed in PPP lending:  "the head of Waterbury-based Webster Bank admitted his company can improve its performance in getting money into the hands of loan applicants.  “Certainly we wanted to help every small business borrower and customer of Webster that we could,” said CEO John Ciulla, speaking Tuesday on a conference call. “We got through approximately 30 percent applications approved (and) 30 percent funded, plus or minus a few percentage points on both sides of that."     This and Webster's dubious "health savings accounts" which it wants excluded from CRA, must be reviewed in this proceeding, including in public hearings    As to Sterling, Inner City Press previously exposed it as having unreliable CRA data, see, here.     There is no public benefit to this proposal.

   Among the comments on the Community Reinvestment Act submitted to the Federal Reserve recently  is one from Webster Bank, arguing that Health Savings Account "deposits should not be considered when determining whether the requirement would apply or when delineating such assessment areas" and should be excluded from the definition of "retail domestic deposits."Consequently, HSAs should also be excluded from  Community Development Financing Metric.

This is scam. 

  Back on May 2, 2020 Fair Finance Watch, and Inner City Press on FOIA, filed a formal challenge with Otting's OCC to the application by Webster Bank to acquire State Farm Bank FSB, its problematic health savings accounts, no less.

   Webster has also under performed in PPP lending:  "the head of Waterbury-based Webster Bank admitted his company can improve its performance in getting money into the hands of loan applicants.  “Certainly we wanted to help every small business borrower and customer of Webster that we could,” said CEO John Ciulla, speaking Tuesday on a conference call. “We got through approximately 30 percent applications approved (and) 30 percent funded, plus or minus a few percentage points on both sides of that." On the CRA comments to the Fed, see NCRC's dashboard, here.

  Sterling has other issues, which Inner City Press previously documented to the OCC leading to delay. Now what will the Fed do, with Powell and Brainard competing to be the next Chair? Watch this site.

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