| Varo Challenged on Federal
Reserve Application For Banking After Service
Outage and CRA Dodge
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
SDNY / South
Bronx, June 10 – With
fintechs pushing to get into
banking, through now
ex-Comptroller Joseph Otting
who after trashing the
Community Reinvestment Act
left and immediately joined
fintech Black Knight, and
through the PPP, on June 10
Fair Finance Watch with Inner
City Press on FOIA submitted
timely comments to the Federal
Reserve opposing Varo's
application, pointing for
example at Varo's service
interruption in October 2019,
including declined debit card
transactions, which they tried
to blame on their processor
Galileo. See here.
Fair Finance Watch has timely
asked the Federal Reserve for
a hearing on weakened CRA
duties, and disproportionate
exclusion: low and moderate
consumers disproportionately
have prepaid or limited data
plans and face disconnections
of their mobile service. And
just because consumers have
email addresses does not mean
that they have regular
internet access, and if they
close or move their accounts,
they may lose access to their
financial
records.
Despite or
perhaps because of these and
the service interruptions,
using OCC deregulation, "Varo
Money has raised an additional
$241 million in Series D
funding, the company announced
today. The investment was
co-led by new investor
Gallatin Point Capital and
existing investor The Rise
Fund, co-founded by TPG. Also
participating in the round
were Bono (yes, that one, also
trying to get Ireland onto the
UN Security Council in a June
17 virtual election), along
with entrepreneur, impact
investor and movie producer
Jeff Skoll; plus HarbourVest
Partners and Progressive
Insurance. To date, Varo
has raised $419.4 million in
funding."
See also, for the
record on which Inner City
Press / Fair Finance Watch are
timely requesting evidentiary
hearings on this application,
" NEWS Technology
Finance Unregulated
Fintech Could be the Source of
the Next Market Crash Posted
to
TechnologyFinance."
At to the Fed itself,
currently the FRB's H2A states
"The H.2A is released each
Friday and will be updated at
least every three days.
June 8, 2020 - Updates to
current release May 29, 2020 -
Current release."
June 8 and May 29
are more than three - more
than ten - days apart.
As previously raised to the
Board, without any response,
as of December 28, 2019 the
most recent application on the
FRB's online H2A had a comment
period ending December 20 -
that is, already closed.
Meanwhile the Fed is
processing and moving to
rubber stamp bank expansion
applications during the
COVID-19 pandemic. The comment
periods must be re-opened and
other remedies. Watch this
site.
***
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