| Protest of
Predatory TAB Bank Leads to CRA
Downgrade amid Hemp Lender West
Town Docs
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon MVB File
SOUTH BRONX NY,
Feb 3 –
Alongside the wrongdoing by
big banks from JPMorgan Chase
to KeyCorp, there are other
also dubious proposed merger
by smaller banks and
predators.
Fair Finance
Watch is on the lookout, with
Inner City Press on the FOIA,
and filed the sample on MVB
Bank, below. On February 3,
2023 the FDIC issued a rare
Needs to Improve rating under
the Community Reinvestment Act
to Transportation Alliance
Bank d/b/a TAB Bank: "The FDIC
lowered the CRA rating from
“Satisfactory” to “Needs to
Improve” due to an illegal
credit practice present during
the review period for this CRA
evaluation."
Note that
"TAB has six strategic
partners to offer consumer
loans and credit cards:
EasyPay Finance: EasyPay
offers unsecured, closed-end,
subprime consumer loans. Loans
are originated through a
network of merchants,
primarily for retail products
and services, such as
automotive services,
furniture, and pets. • Mission
Lane: Mission Lane offers
subprime credit card program
for borrowers working to
rebuild credit. • Snap
Finance, Sunbit, FlexLending
(new): FlexLending offers POS,
closed-end loans to consumers
purchasing tires. FlexLending
also recently began offering a
new direct-to-consumer loan
program. • Integra (new):
Integra offers unsecured,
closed-end, subprime consumer
loans." #PredatoryBedner.
We'll have more on this. And
on this, which we filed:
Dear Chair
Powell, Secretary Misback and
others in the
FRS: This is
a request for a full copy of,
and a timely first comment on,
the Applications of MVB
Financial Corp., Fairmont,
West Virginia; to acquire
Integrated Financial Holdings,
Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina,
and thereby indirectly acquire
West Town Bank & Trust,
North Riverside, Illinois, and
acquire voting shares of West
Town Payments, LLC, Raleigh,
North Carolina, "and
more."
Fair Finance
Watch has been reviewing West
Town Bank including its 2021
HMDA data not taken into
account in any CRA exam and
finds it troubling. FFW in
looking into MVB Bank find its
offers of banking for gaming,
but for CRA questions, not
even an email address, only a
snail mail address. This is
not a best practice, far from
it.
In
terms of HMDA data, in 2021,
West Town Bank made 319
mortgage loans to whites with
seven denials. Meanwhile to
African Americans it made only
TWENTY FIVE loans, while
denying five applications. A
referral should be made to the
DOJ for fair lending
violations.
MVB, proposing to buy West
Town Bank including its hemp
lending, is engaged in gaming
lending, fintechs - but has
not put its CRA file online or
even available by emailing."
Since
filing, MVB provided Fair
Finance Watch with what it
calls its 271-page CRA file
(for some reason, only "as of
April 2022") which we've put
on DocumentCloud here
to make it public as all CRA
files should be, and the Fed
has provided portions of the
application, including that
target "IFHI owns a 30.5%
interest in VeriLeaf, Inc., a
Delaware corporation with its
main office in Austin, Texas,
which is a start-up company
that provides automated
software solutions and related
compliance and risk management
services to assist banks with
enhanced due diligence needed
for higher-risk customer
bases, such as hemp
businesses." 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 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Mail: Box 20047, Dag
Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
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 2006-2022 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com
|
,
