| OceanFirst Flushing
Proposal Opposed by Fair Finance
Watch After Redlining Deal FRS
Reply
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
FEDERAL
COURT,
Jan 7 – How automatic do bank
now think merger approvals
are? On December 29,
OceanFirst, which settled
charges of redlining earlier
this decade, announced it will
apply to buy Flushing Bank in
New York.
Fair
Finance Watch has opposed it,
in comments filed January 2
with the Office of teh
Comptroller of the Currency,
and with the Federal Reserve
Board which recently allowed a
$7 billion mega-merger to
proceed with no Fed review.
OceanFirst's record should
preclude this. and this
proposed deal.
In 2024
OceanFirst made 1399 loans to
whites - and only 94 to
African Americans. In
Connecticut, for example, it
made loans only to whites,
none to African
Americans.
In
Pennsylvania its ratio of
loans to whites to loans to
African Americans was 4.5 to
1. In New York, it was 7 to 1.
This proposal is
being opposed along with the
OCC's moves to exclude the
public, and to withhold
documents under FOIA from
Inner City Press and others
until comment periods close.
On January 7 the
Federal Reserve replied: "The
Federal Reserve Bank of
Phiadelphia received your
correspondence on January 2,
2026, regarding a future
application by OceanFirst to
acquire Flushing Bank. The
Federal Reserve has not yet
received an application by
OceanFirst to acquire Flushing
Bank. Accordingly, no
immediate action will be taken
on the correspondence dated
January 2, 2026. If a filing
is received in the next three
months, your comment may be
considered as part of the
application record for the
filing."
MAY be
considered? Watch this site.
***
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