By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
SOUTH BRONX / SDNY, June 8 – How much of a swamp is Washington DC, when it comes to banks dominating their putative regulators? Newest exhibit is this: "Jelena McWilliams, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is joining Cravath, Swaine & Moore as a partner, anchoring the firm’s new Washington, D.C., office, the law firm announced Monday. Also joining the D.C. office as partners are two former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staffers: Elad Roisman, a former commissioner and acting chairman of the regulator, and Jennifer Leete, a former associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, the law firm said. The move marks McWilliams’ return to the private sector after spending 3½ years at the helm of the FDIC. A holdover from the Trump administration, McWilliams stepped down from the regulator in February following a dust-up with two FDIC board members."
So who now will Cravath represent, before the regulatory agencies? We'll have more on this.
New York and Massachusetts are portrayed as diverse and progressive places. But their banks, not so much.
Consider for example today's proposed merger between Brookline Bank in Massachusetts and PCSB Bank in New York, with branches in Mount Vernon, Eastchester and elsewhere.
Bronx-based Inner City Press has long exposed redlining. Along with Fair Finance Watch it finds that in 2020, the most recent year for which Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data is publicly available, PCSB Bank in New York State made 79 loans to whites - and only seven to African America. The dollar volume difference is even worse, a twenty to one disparity.
So what is the lending record in Massachusetts of Brookline Bank, the proposed acquirer of PCSB?
Well, Brookline Bank in 2020 made 456 loans to whites and only FOUR to African Americans. Meanwhile it denied fully 11 applications from African Americans, and only 93 from whites.
This is a proposed merger that should and will be challenged under the Community Reinvestment Act to the regulators. In fact, if the regulators mean what they claim, this application should not even be filed. Watch this site.
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