By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
SOUTH BRONX / SDNY, April 8 – With the mega-merger horse largely out of the barn in the US, Citibank too big to question for its business in Russia even as JPMorgan Chase admits gambling a billion dollars there while closing branches in New York. the smallest of regulators had started a review.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, with jurisdiction mostly over small banks not members of the Federal Reserve System with the exception of the ironically named Truist, has a public comment period on mergers.
Now Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has written to the Fed's Jay Powell and to national bank overseer Michael Hsu, the Comptroller of the Currency who himself came from the Fed, to ask them to get involved.
They have much more to answer for.
The FDIC in the face of a Community Reinvestment Act challenge to Investors Bank by Fair Finance Watch imposed conditions on the bank.
But the Fed, with Investors being gobbled up by Citizens Bank, refused to review Investors compliance with even those tame conditions. Inner City Press' FOIA requests languish for months at the Fed.
The OCC, despite the issue being raised to Hsu, has yet to implement even back transparency measures in its merger reviews, such as sending copies of its questions, and the banks' answers, to public commenters.
So things are worse, it seems, than Senator Brown and his colleagues know.
The public, particularly affected communities, much comments and comment now. Watch this site.
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