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By Matthew R. Lee, Video, 7/31 story

NEW YORK, July 31 – The US Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting, who said he's never witnessed discrimination and is poised to attack the Community Reinvestment Act, today announced he'll be giving out "fintech" bank charters. CRA won't apply. Instead, the announcement vaguely says, "The expectations for promoting financial inclusion will depend on the company’s business model and the types of planned products, services, and activities." But what to expect of the OCC of Otting? When at OneWest, he arranged for Astro-turf and even fake public comments supporting its acquisition by the CIT Group. Later on July 31 New York regulator Maria T. Vullo issued this: "The New York State Department of Financial Services fiercely opposes the Department of Treasury’s endorsement of regulatory ‘sandboxes’ for financial technology companies. The idea that innovation will flourish only by allowing companies to evade laws that protect consumers, and which also safeguard markets and mitigate risk for the financial services industry, is preposterous. Toddlers play in sandboxes.  Adults play by the rules. Companies that truly want to create change and thrive over the long-term appreciate the importance of developing their ideas and protecting their customers within a strong state regulatory framework. DFS also strong opposes today’s decision by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to begin accepting applications for national bank charters from nondepository financial technology (fintech) companies.  DFS believes that this endeavor, which is also wrongly supported by the Treasury Department, is clearly not authorized under the National Bank Act. As DFS has noted since the OCC’s proposal, a national fintech charter will impose an entirely unjustified federal regulatory scheme on an already fully functional and deeply rooted state regulatory landscape." Sounds good -- but NYS DFS has for example allowed First Republic Bank to redline The Bronx, and hasn't even confirmed receipt of a timely comment opposing it. We'll have more on this - and on this: First Republic Bank, which excludes The Bronx as well as Brooklyn and Queens from its assessment area while funding outer borough slumlords, has applied to New York bank regulators to open another branch in Manhattan. Fair Finance Watch has filed opposition, along with Inner City Press, also citing FRB's record of displacement in California:  On behalf of Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch (ICP), this is a timely comment opposing the application by First Republic Bank to open a new insured deposit-taking facility at 329 Tenth Avenue, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York 10001. First Republic Bank is engaged in redlining. Its branches in New York are entirely in Manhattan, and only in the most affluent sections. It excludes from its CRA Assessment Area, in their entirety, the boroughs of The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. This is an outrage, and that ICP had thought was no longer allowed by regulars. (ICP previously challenged and got changes such exclusionary Assessment Areas at Bank of New York, HSBC, predecessors of Bank of America and others). Cynically, while excluding the outer boroughs from its assessment area, First Republic Bank does business with landlords who have been described as slumlords, such as Moshe Piller. See, e.g., Daily News, “Moshe Piller, owner of the Hunts Point Ave. building in the Bronx where two children died when a faulty radiator spewed steam into their bedroom.” (ICP also takes note of the San Francisco analysis of its fellow NCRC member CRC). Fair Finance Watch has reviewed First Republic Bank's most recent publicly available HMDA data for the NYC MSA and, for home purchase loans, find that FRB made 283 such loans to whites, and only three each to Latino and  African American applicants. Its denial rate disparity is astronomical: 20% denial rate for African American, less than 1% for whites. Again: First Republic Bank is a redliner. For all of these reasons, First Republic Bank's applications should be denied." We'll have more on this - and this: People's United Bank, which has applied to buy Farmington Bank in Connecticut, has become more and not less disparate in its lending, as shown by analysis of U.S. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data by Fair Finance Watch submitted to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency by Inner City Press in opposition to the proposed merger. From the timely July 27 filing: "This is a timely first comment opposing and requesting an extension of the OCC's public comment period on the Application by People's United Bank to acquire Farmington Bank.
  In the the New York City MSA in 2014, People's United made 82 home purchase loans to whites and NONE to African Americans or Latinos.   We note that People's has been in these markets since 2010 -- NOT “recently” -- and that New York City is not the “Lower Hudson Valley. Then we found that in 2015 in the New York City MSA, People's United made 110 home purchase loans to whites and only ONE to an African American and only four to Latinos.
  In 2016, the most recent year for which HMDA data is publicly available, People's got even worse: in the NYC MSA it made 144 home purchase loans to whites (more than in 2015) and still only one to an African American.
   For refinance loans in the New York City MSA in 2014, People's United made 24 loans to whites, 1 to an African American and four to Hispanics. By 2016, it was again worse: 165 loans to whites and only two to African Americans.
This is systematic redlining; this proposed acquisition could not legitimately be approved and People's United should be referred for prosecution for redlining by the Department of Justice and CFPB.
   People's United record is hardly sufficient in the Hartford MSA where it now proposes to acquire Farmington Bank. In 2016 in the Hartford MSA, People's United made 162 home purchase loans to whites and only 10 to African Americans and only 14 to Latinos.
  Again, this is systematic redlining; this proposed acquisition could not legitimately be approved and People's United should be referred for prosecution for redlining by the Department of Justice and CFPB.
     In this context, the comment period should be extended so that public evidentiary hearings can be held, and the application should be denied." Bank of America has been sued for failure to maintain properties it forecloses on in communities of color. Nationwide, the lawsuit contends, 45 percent of the Bank of America properties in communities of color had 10 or more maintenance or marketing deficiencies, while only 11 percent of the Bank of America properties in predominantly white neighborhoods had 10 or more maintenance or marketing deficiencies. 64 percent of the Bank of America properties in communities of color had trash or debris visible on the property, while only 31 percent of the Bank of America properties in predominantly white neighborhoods had trash visible on the property. 37 percent of the Bank of America properties in communities of color had unsecured or broken doors, while only 16 percent of the Bank of America properties in predominantly white neighborhoods had unsecured or broken doors. 49.6 percent of the Bank of America properties in communities of color had damaged, boarded, or unsecured windows, while only 23.5 percent of the Bank of America properties in white neighborhoods had damaged, boarded or unsecured windows.

  In Milwaukee, for example, recently profiled in the book "Evicted," the lawsuit cites 134 Bank of America REO properties. Of these 134 REO properties, 74 were located in African American neighborhoods, 21 were located in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, eight were located in predominantly nonwhite
neighborhoods, and 31 were located in predominantly white neighborhoods. 83.9% of the REO properties in predominantly white neighborhoods had fewer than five maintenance or marketing deficiencies, while only 21.4% of REO properties in neighborhoods of color had fewer than 5 maintenance or marketing deficiencies. 78.6% of REO properties in neighborhoods of color had 5 or more marketing or maintenance deficiencies, while only 16.1% of the REO properties in white neighborhoods had 5 or more marketing or maintenance deficiencies. 8.7% of REO properties in neighborhoods of color had 10 or more marketing or maintenance deficiencies, while none of the REO properties in white neighborhoods had 10 or more marketing or maintenance deficiencies. Some including the Fair Finance Watch notice similar disparities in Milwaukee when it comes to the placement of the Bublr bike share program. Maybe Bank of America will want to put its name on the disparate network, as Citibank has in New York with disparately placed CitiBike.

  At the UN on June 4, when Citigroup managing director Michael Eckhart appeared, it was to talk about renewable energy with the UN Environment Program. Inner City Press asked Eckhart about Citigroup's role in the Dakota Access Pipeline.

He paused and admitted it was a lender, than said that the outcry against the pipeline, on indigenous human rights and other issues, was entirely unexpected. He said they had not protested early enough. Video here. But what about free prior informed CONSENT? Is silence consent? Or, as is too often the case, is the UN a place of hypocrisy?

As Inner City Press has shown, UNEP paid money to Volvo Ocean Races, and appears to have engaged in pay-for-prize with MoBikes. Inner City Press also asked about the UN bribery scandal in which China Energy Fund Committee - oil money - bribed UN President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa, but CEFC remains in special consultative status with UN ECOSOC. Video here. We'll have more on this - and on Citigroup. Watch this site.

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