By Matthew R. Lee
NEW YORK, March 7 – After Astoria Bank's protested proposal to be acquired by New York Community Bank fell apart in late 2016, now it has found a new, equally controversial suitor: Sterling Bancorp. Fair Finance Watch showed in 2015 that Sterling's lending record was so disparate that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency imposed a Community Reinvestment Act condition on Sterling. Now Inner City Press' review of the most recent Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data from that in the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area Sterling denied the home purchase loan applications of African Americans more than 3.5 times more frequently that those of whites, worse that the rest of the industry. It denied Latinos 2.15 times more frequently than whites, also worse than other lenders. We'll have more on this.
In January, disparate lender Investor Bancorp, on which Fair Finance Watch previously got a condition imposed saw its proposal with Bank of Princeton fall apart.
There's also Capital One - Cabela, on which Inner City Press commented: "In the New York City MSA in 2015, the most recent year for which HMDA data is available, for conventional home purchase loans Capital One denied the applications of whites 23% of the time, while denying African Africans fully 45% of the time, and Latinos even more, 46% of the time. This is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Capital One is “closing branches in Laurel, Gaithersburg, Frederick and Merrifield.”
Meanwhile, Capital One is “closing branches in Laurel, Gaithersburg, Frederick and Merrifield.”
Capital One came back with snark, as has Simmons National -- but then announced including to NCRC that it will withdrawn its application. Onward.
