by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SOUTH BRONX/SDNY, Oct 11 – With the US Congress passing the cryptocurrency GENIUS Act, Ripple Labs as well as Circle and others, have applied for banking charters to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Now Brazil's Nubank has applied. Inner City Press has FOIAed.
On October 11 Fair Finance Watch filed a timely comment with the OCC, including:
On behalf of Fair Finance Watch, this is a timely comment in opposition to the application to charter the proposed Nubank N.A. FFW is troubled that Nubank with its record wants a US national bank. Consider: "The MP’s investigation uncovered several violations, including offering loans without the customer’s request, collecting on already paid debts, and imposing unauthorised instalment plans, as well as charging disputed purchases and failing to offer alternatives for early repayment or debt amortisation, as required by law. Additionally, according to the lawsuit, complaints were also filed about the application of excessive interest rates, which were be considered abusive. Prosecutors alleged that some customers were required to pay debt without having requested or authorised the funds, nor having access to the money allegedly made available by the bank. The MP-BA asked the court to require Nubank to offer clear information about its products and credit, assess the consumers’ real financial condition before granting loans, and ensure the preservation of an existential minimum to prevent over-indebtedness."
Also, "late payments for 90 days or more are now substantially higher than the 5.5% average for the banking sector calculated by Brazil’s central bank. While Nubank doesn’t break down non-performing loan or credit data by country — it does business in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia — 90% of its customers are in Brazil."
How would Nubank (and the OCC) assure this would not happen in the US? This is a request for public hearings.
FFW will have more to say when it receives responses to its and Inner City Press' FOIA requests. On the current record, the application(s) could not legitimately be approved.
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