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by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

SOUTH BRONX/Federal Court, Nov 15  – A proposed acquisition by Ohio-based Park National Bank of First Citizens of Tennessee after Park National's redlining settlement, and deteriorating record since, have given risen to a challenge under the Community Reinvestment Act.

  On November 15 Fair Finance Watch, reviewing Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data of Park National for 2024, filed a CRA challenge to the merger with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:

  Beyond the lending disparities preliminarily identified below, Park National is one of the few banks with a redlining settlement. See, United States v. Park National Bank (S.D. Ohio), 2:23-cv-00822-EAS-CM    It also has troubling consumer complaints against it. On the current record, the application to buy First Citizens must be denied.  

  In North Carolina in 2024, The Park National Bank denied four mortgage applications from African Americans while making fewer, only two loans - while it made fully 71 loans to whites and denied only 11 applications. This is disparate.

In South Carolina in 2024, The Park National Bank made 166 mortgage loans to whites, with only 49 denials, while making only 14 loans to African Americans with fully 10 denials. This is disparate.  

Even in its home state of Ohio in 2024 The Park National Bank made 2648 mortgage loans to whites, with only 721 denials, while making only 218 loans to African Americans with fully 55 denials. This is disparate.

Here for the record are just some of the many complaints against Park National Bank:  Ashland, OH ... And see, e.g., American Banker, Sept 10, 2025, "The FDIC is taking the 'community' out of CRA enforcement," by Matthew R. Lee, here.

 And now the OCC is following suit in trying to cut out the public. The above-quoted reasoning is that few comments are filed. So, that is now changing.

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