By Matthew R. Lee
SOUTH BRONX NY, April 7, 2013 -- In its second study of the just-released 2012 mortgage lending data, Inner City Press and Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch have found that a range of regional banks including KeyCorp, US Bank NA and SunTrust Mortgage continued with high cost loans and disparities by race and ethnicity in denials and higher-cost lending.
2012 is the ninth year in which the data distinguishes which loans are higher cost, over a federally-defined rate spread of 1.5 percent over Treasury bill yields.
The just released data show that KeyCorp confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.51 times more frequently than whites in 2012, Fair Finance Watch has found.
KeyCorp denied the applications of African Americans 1.76 times more frequently than those of whites.
KeyCorp confined Latinos to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 1.53 times more frequently than whites in 2012, the data show. It denied the applications of Latinos 1.44 times more frequently than those of whites.
SunTrust Mortgage confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.50 times more frequently than whites in 2012; for Latinos its disparity was 1.50.
US Bank NA confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 1.74 times more frequently than whites in 2012; for Latinos its disparity was 1.97. There are some irregularities in US Bank NA's data that Inner City Press will be further raising.
“Even after the bailouts, lending disparities grew worse and not better," said Fair Finance Watch. "Regulatory laxity, at least on fair lending, has continued despite the financial meltdown caused by predatory lending."
In 2012, Toronto Dominion or TD Bank denied the applications of African Americans 1.75 times more frequently than those of whites. For both PNC and Regions the disparity for African Americans was 1.57.
"The Federal Reserve is becoming more and more bank-friendly, including with recent Freedom of Information Act appeal denials by Governor Jay Power, formerly a hedge funder and Deutsche Bank official Jay Powell. It remains unclear if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will get to this problem," Fair Finance Watch continued. "The disparities in the 2012 mortgage data of these banks further militate for aggressively watchdogging and breaking up these banks."
Instead, the Fed allowed the creation of a fifth mega-bank in Capital One when it acquired ING DIRECT and the subprime assets of HSBC. In 2012, Fair Finance Watch has found, HSBC denied the applications of African Americans 1.34 times more frequently than those of whites.
Also in 2012, fully 9.93 percent of Capital One's morgage loans to African American were higher cost loans, versus 7.61 percent of Capital One's loans to whites. To Latinos, the percentage was even higher: 10.31 percent.
And so Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press have re-doubled watchdogging. Last week it studied the 2012 lending of the “Big Four” -- Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase,Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
The data show that Citigroup confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 2.09 times more frequently than whites in 2012, Fair Finance Watch found.
Citigroup confined Latinos to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 1.83 times more frequently than whites in 2012, the data show.
For JPMorgan Chase, the disparity for African Americans in 2012 was 1.7; for Bank of America it was 1.61; for the largest of Wells Fargo's many HMDA data reporters, the disparity for African Americans in 2011 was up to 2.32.
Challenged by the groups in 2012 and still pending are applications by Customers Bancorp and by M&T, to acquire Hudson City Savings Bank.
Regulators had allowed Hudson City in 2011, for conventional home purchase loans in the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area, to make 765 such loans to whites and only FIVE to African Americans (and only 44 to Latinos). Meanwhile, Hudson City denied the applications of African Americans 3.21 times more frequently then those of whites.
In March 2013 Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch began a challenge to Investors Bancorp's application to acquire Roma. In the NYC MSA in 2011 for conventional home purchase loans, Investors Bank made 220 such loans to whites, and only TWO such loans to African Americans. Its denial rate for Latinos was FIVE TIMES higher than for whites.
On April 5, Investors Bancorp announced it will try to also acquire $300 million Gateway Community Financial Corp - this also will be opposed, on the current record.
The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act required that the 2012 data be provided by March 31, following March 1 joint requests by Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press. Several banks still did not provide their data by the deadline, despite confirming receipt of the request. Further studies will follow: watch this site.
