| Park
National Bid for First
Citizens of Tennessee After
Redlining Settlement Leads to
Challenge
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. Fair
Finance Watch is requesting an
evidentiary hearing. On the
current record, the
application to buy First
Citizens must be
denied.
Fair
Finance Watch has long been
concerned about Park
National. Now we find
that even after their
settlement loudly announced to
the redlining complaint, Park
National has not
improved.
As it seeks
to expand further, consider
its 2024 lending, not reviewed
in any Community Reinvestment
Act performance
evaluation.
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.
n 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 ... I used to work here. I
finally had to move on because
I couldn't deal with the drama
and backstabbing. Fair
warning: this bank allows
workplace bullying and
childish behavior. Co workers
whisper and talk about other
co workers, they are passive
aggressive and cliquey. Even
the supervisors will join in!
I witnessed many of my
associates go through this and
I experienced it myself at
times. This doesn't just
happen internally! Every
branch I worked at, the staff
would talk about customers and
make fun of them. [On what
grounds?]
The Village of
Indian Hill, OH Terrible
Customer Experience! Any bank
is better than this! I am
opening a new business, hence
a new business account. I
walked up to teller and stated
that I want to open a Business
Account. Teller said, we'll be
with you in a minute. I sat
there more than 20 minutes.
Made eye contact with almost
all 6 tellers and a person
sitting on the desks outside
of counter and none of them
followed up with me or the
people sitting on desks.
FFW and Inner
City Press note in the FDIC's
pending proposal RIN
3064-AG10: "the FDIC has
received a limited number of
public comments in response to
subpart C applications....
Therefore, the FDIC is
proposing to eliminate the
public notice and related
public comment period from
subpart C and to make
conforming changes to subpart
A of 12 CFR part 303 of the
FDIC Rules." 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
Watch this site
***
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