By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
SOUTH BRONX, Oct 7 – Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia are portrayed as diverse and ever progressive places. But their banks, not so much.
Consider for example the proposed merger on the rebound between New York-based Link Bank and Partners Bancorp, which recently broke off its proposed deal with OceanFirst.
Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch have long exposed redlining - and in this vein, on May 6 they filed a Community Reinvestment Act challenge with the FDIC and Federal Reserve.
Now in October, the FDIC has required from LINKBANK a plan to improve its lending to African Americans, which Inner City Press has published on its DocumentCloud here.
Fair Finance Watch has been reviewing LinkBank including its 2021 HMDA data not taken into account in any CRA exam and finds it troubling.
In Pennsylvania in 2021, Link Bank made 49 HMDA-reported loans to whites - and only TWO to African Americans, worse that its peers. When one expands the review to include loans beyond Pennsylvania, Link Bank's loans in 2021 to whites increase to 53, but to African Americans remains the same insufficient TWO.
Virginia Partners Bank is only slightly better. In 2021 it made 48 HMDA reported loans and only THREE to African Americans. While insufficient, that is still more than Link Bank's TWO. A terrible bank would be acquiring a bad bank, and making it even worse.
After Inner City Press' comments were filed, LINKBANK's outside counsel Luse Gorman PC by Agata S. Troy and Benjamin Azoff rather than addressing the disparities argued that they have no merit.. This should not be countenanced - rather than conditional approval - the type of condition, even mild, that the Fed refuses to incorporate much less enforce - Fed denial is called for.
If the regulators at the Fed means what they claim, this application should be denied. Watch this site.
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