By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Story
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
FEDERAL COURT / S Bronx, August 13 – Whether or not the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act will actually be enforced under this Administration and its regulators remains an open question. Now a litmus test, for the Federal Reserve and NYSDFS:
Dear Chair Powell, Secretary Misback and others in the FRS [also sent to NYSDFS]
This is a request for a full copy of, and a timely first comment on, the Applications by Brookline Bancorp, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts; to acquire PCSB Financial Corporation, and thereby indirectly acquire PCSB Bank, both of Yorktown Heights, New York.
Fair Finance Watch has been tracking Brookline Bancorp and finds it lending patterns, including in the newly released 2021 HMDA data not taken into account in CRA exams, troubling. In 2021 Brookline Bank made 434 mortgage loans to whites - and only NINE to African Americans, while denying SEVEN applications by African Americans, and denying only (in context) 71 applications by whites. This bank should be referred to the DOJ for fair lending prosecution, and this application denied.
Speaking of the law, Brookline Bancorp has been sued for discrimination in employement, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the underlying facts of which the FRB should inquire into in connection with this application including at the requested evidentiary hearing: Ahmed v. Brookline Bancorp Inc. (18-cv-06886)
FFW and Inner City Press have been deeply concerned about the rush by the Federal Reserve to rubber-stamp mergers by redliners. This has been killing the Community Reinvestment Act and we timely request public hearings.
Back in December 2021 Inner City Press reported on BMO Harris' application to buy Bank of the West and its more than 500 branches from BNP.
Fair Finance Watch noted, from Day 1, that in 2020 BMO Harris denied many more mortgage applications from African Americans than it approved: 509 denied versus only 223 loans made to African Americans, nationwide. BMO's numbers for whites were the reverse: 9270 loans made, versus less then six thousand denials.
On May 17 the Federal Reserve and OCC announced that they would at least hold a public meeting. And they did - it is pending. And this?
Inner City Press (and Fair Finance Watch, on the HMDA) will have more to say about this. Watch this site.
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