| Fed Rubber Stamped
Pinnacle Synovus Merger
Denied Reconsideration Amid
$1.5 B Drop
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
NASHVILLE/NYC,
Jan
6 – Synovus Bank, with a track
record of disparate lending
and consumer complaints, aims
to cash out and merge with
Nashville-based
Pinnacle.
But
Pinnacle has its own
disparities, and is
under-regulated by the
Tennessee Commissioner of
Financial Institutions, who
refuses to provide any
documents to anyone but
Tennessee "citizens" (not even
those *in* Tennessee).
So Fair Finance
Watch filed Community
Reinvestment Act challenges
with the Federal Reserve and
the Georgia regulator (both
have confirmed receipt and the
Fed has sent
to Pinnacle) as well as the
recalcitrant Tennessee
regulator, who refuses to give
records or even confirm
receipt of the challenge.
Pinnacle has Tennessee in the
palm of its hand, lock stock
and barrel, regulator and
media.
And now it has
the Federal Reserve too, which
on November 25 issued a rubber
stamp approval, including that
FFW "objected to the proposal,
alleging that both Synovus
Bank and Pinnacle Bank
generally made proportionally
fewer home loans to African
American individuals as
compared to white individuals
in 2024
The Fed Order
concedes as to FFW that "The
data cited by
this commenter
corresponds to
publicly
available 2024
data reported
by both
Synovus Bank
and Pinnacle
Bank under the
Home Mortgage
Disclosure Act
of 1975
(“HMDA”), 12
U.S.C. § 2801
et seq." - but
the Fed
doesn't care
about
disparities.
It continues: "This commenter
also alleged that Pinnacle
Bank denied home loan
applications of African
American individuals at a
higher rate than those of
white individuals." But the
Fed still approved.
On December 7,
within the time set for such
requests, FFW requested
reconsideration by the Board,
writing to the general counsel
that, among other things, "ten
day AFTER the approval - so,
new fact that FFW could not
have presented before the
approval - the FRS on Friday,
December 5 belatedly announced
an enforcement action against
a Synovus universal banker for
misappropriation from
customers and forgery of
documents.
Why was this enforcement
action withheld or held up
under after the approval, and
just before the time to
request reconsideration of it
was set to expire?"
On December 17
the Fed sent back a letter
denying reconsideration,
decision made by the General
Counsel, not the Governors.
The first version of the
letter was dated in the future
- December 18 - but was then
resent, including to two law
firms also representing
Huntington (which avoided /
evaded even applying to the
Fed to buy Cadence) and Fifth
Third, with the correct date:
December 17. But why was the
request and the questions in
it presented to the Governors,
at least in writing?
When the deal
closed, it was worth $6.95
billion — a more than $1.5
billion decrease from when the
deal as announced. That's what
the market thinks of it - and
for communities, it's
significantly worse.
Watch this site.
Back on October 9
the Fed asked Pinnacle nine
multi-part questions,
including "A copy of the CRA
policy to be used by the
combined organization or, if
one is not available, a
projected timeline for
completion. 4. Discuss
the combined organization’s
plans to manage third party
partnership compliance risk
exposure, including, but not
limited to, BHG Financial and
GreenSky, LLC. a. Include in
your discussion anticipated
key leadership positions and
any individuals identified to
fill them; plans for
reporting/Management" - full
letter here.
From the comment:
Dear Chair Powell and others
in the FRS:
... Fair
Finance Watch has reviewed the
just-released 2024 Home
Mortgage Disclosure Act data
of Synovus and finds that
while it made 3.18 loans to
whites for each denial to
whites, it made only 1.7 loans
to African Americans for each
denial to African Americans.
Pinnacle is of even greater
concern. In Virginia, where
Pinnacle received a Low
Satisfactory on the Lending
Test in its most recently (May
2023) CRA performance
evaluation, in 2024 it made
133 mortgage loans to whites,
with 19 denials, but only 13
loans to African Americans,
with fully eight denials...
This
application should not be
approved; particularly in
light of the disparities,
public evidentiary hearings
are needed.
Watch this site.
***
Your
support means a lot. As little as $5 a month
helps keep us going and grants you access to
exclusive bonus material on our Patreon
page. Click
here to become a patron.
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Mail: Box 130222, Chinatown Station,
NY NY 10013
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2026 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com
|
,
