By Matthew R. Lee
NEW YORK, May 16 – A regulation against predatory payday lending, which was threatened with Congressional repeal up to today, has survived the threat: the deadline came and went on May 16. The Congressional Review Act resolution (S.J. Res. 56) to repeal it garnered only four sponsors. But threats to the Community Reinvestment Act continue: US Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting, who generated fake comments supporting his OneWest Bank's merger with CIT Group, is now seeking to remove the "community" from the US Community Reinvestment Act, eliminating any focus on the areas from which banks draw their insured deposits. Otting told the ABA he wants to make it “easy and simple for banks to understand” the CRA. His OCC spokesperson spuns that "the comptroller has mentioned in numerous public settings that we need to revisit how assessment areas are defined." The WSJ, for now, did not mention Otting's previous history of undermining the CRA. Otting has also been shown to have continued buy and owning bank and insurance company stocks even after he was nominated, confirmed and began at the OCC. The stocks included Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, KeyCorp and Prudential Financial. Now Otting has his eye on further weakening Community Reinvestment Act reviews of mergers. The OCC is still withholding documents requested by Inner City Press and CRC under FOIA including about how Otting's bank's lawyers responded to the fake comment issue. We'll have more on this. Even as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Mick Mulvaney promises to scrap payday lending and other protections, on April 20 his CFPB with a new logo along with Joseph Otting's OCC announced a $1 billion fine against Wells Fargo. As one Inner City Press agency source put it, imagine what the fine would be under anyone else. Others noted how unspecific the press release of the CFPB - apparently being renamed the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection - is, compared to those which came before. On April 9 the payday lenders' lobbying group Community Financial Services Association of Americasued to overturn the rule, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. This comes as the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's Joseph Otting has ended the ban on payday lender ACE Cash Express working with national banks.
We'll have more on this.
