| As Otting Attacks CRA Wells Fargo
Avoids Prosecution for Fake Account Amid
Whitewash of Mortgage Data
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
Honduras
- The
Source - The
Root - etc
Bronx / SDNY, Feb
23 – With
US Comptroller
of the
Currency
Joseph Otting
moving along
with the FDIC
to undermine
the
Community
Reinvestment
Act, in
February 2020
Inner City
Press / Fair
Finance Watch
filed a CRA
protest with
the OCC to
the application
by Community
Bank NA to buy
Steuben Trust,
here.
Now
Wells Fargo has
reached an easy
settlement
for systematically
opening
false
accounts, in which
no one will go
to jail or even
be prosecuted:
"As part of
Friday's
settlement,
the Justice
Department
agreed not to
criminally
prosecute the
bank during
the three-year
term of the
agreement,
provided that
Wells Fargo
continues to
cooperate with
government
investigations."
Impunity.
The Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau
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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