| As CFPB Shirks Public
Process With Advisory Opinions Its Whitewash
of Mortgage Continues With Attack on CRA
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
Honduras
- The
Source - The
Root - etc
South Bronx, June
18 – With
the
Office of the
Comptroller
of the
Currency now
under Brian
Brooks
formally undermining
the
Community
Reinvestment
Act,
Inner
City Press /
Fair Finance
Watch filed a
number of CRA
protests, and
requests with
bank- and
non-bank
lenders for
their PPP
information.
On June 18
the Consumer
Financial
Protection
Bureau (CFPB)
announced "a pilot
advisory
opinion
program
designed to
provide
additional
protections
for financial
institutions
at the expense
of consumers.
Under the CFPB
pilot, itself
issued without
notice and
comment,
financial
institutions
are invited to
submit
requests for
regulatory
clarifications
in areas of
“substantive
importance.”
The advisory
opinions will
then be issued
by the CFPB,
without
notice-and-public
comment, on
the basis of
confidential
information
submitted by
the financial
institution.
Only entities
subject to the
CFPB’s
jurisdiction
may request
these advisory
opinions, and
the advisory
opinions will
provide safe
harbor
protections
for financial
institutions
under all
major consumer
protection
laws. One of
the priorities
of the pilot
program is to
identify
outdated,
unnecessary or
unduly
burdensome
regulations in
order to
reduce
regulatory
burdens on
companies."
This is a
pattern.
The CFPB under
Kathy Kraninger issued 2018
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
data - with an interface
without any racial or ethnic
information unlike 2017 and
every previous year,
undermining the entire purpose
of the HMDA law. See this
page and this December 16
filing with FDIC, cc-ed to the
CFPB:
December 16,
2019 Via e-mail
Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation Attn:
John Vogel, Regional Director
and Doreen R. Eberley, Jim
Watkins, Robert P. Cordeiro,
Scott D. Strockoz 350 Fifth
Avenue, Suite 1200 New York,
NY 10118-0110
Re: Timely First
Comment on Applications by
Flushing Bank to Acquire
Empire National Bank
Dear Regional
Director Vogel and others at
the FDIC:
This is a timely
first comment opposing and
requesting an extension of the
FDIC's public comment period
on the Applications by
Flushing Bank to Acquire
Empire National
Bank.
Flushing Bank in
2018, for race specified
loans, made six times more
loans to whites than to
African Americans, entirely
out of keeping with the
demographics of its
market.
Compare the
demographics of its lending to
the geography: 68 loans to
Queens, 35 in Manhattan, 27 in
The Bronx, 35 in Manhattan,
five on Staten Island and 24
in Westchester
County.
Inner City Press
/ Fair Finance Watch would
like to and has a right to
submit more detailed HMDA
data. But for the record, the
Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau for 2018 data has
unilaterally removed the
ability of the public to view
HMDA data by race on its
website, which the FFIEC /
Federal Reserve allowed in
previous years and the CFBP
did even in 2017.
Inner City Press
/ Fair Finance Watch contends
that the CFPB's move is both
anti-public and
illegal.
For further
context, last week the FDIC
opted in a party line vote to
go with the OCC of ex-banker
Otting which is trying to
further weaken the CRA, and
has already in rogue-like
fashion barred the public from
comment on charter conversion
and even merger applications
like that involving Chinatown
FSB earlier this
year.
In this context,
Inner City Press / Fair
Finance Watch is demanding an
extension of this comment
period by the FDIC, its
intervention with the CFPB to
restore access on the website
itself to 2018 HMDA data, a
reversal of the FDIC's
anti-CRA moves, and on the
current record the denial by
the FDIC of these
application(s). Thank
you for your prompt
attention,
Matthew R. Lee
Inner City Press / Fair
Finance Watch
cc's incl
Brenda.Muniz [at] cfpb.gov
Watch
this site.
***
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