| As US Bank Regulators
Exclude Public They Heard PNC and
Zions FFW to Fed on March 26
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack SDNY/SOUTH
BRONX, March 26 รข€“ As
US bank regulators loosen
rules - including the FDIC
moving to eliminate public
comment altogether on branch
expansion applications, and
OCC to reduce them - now big
banks are moving to get
bigger, PNC with FirstBank,
and Fifth Third with Comerica. The
cynicism of the regulators is
boundless. While the FDIC on
September 16, 2025 closed its
comment period on eliminating
public notice and comment on
branch applications, Inner
City Press checked the docket
and found fraud-rocked Zions
Bank to have urged loosening
anti-redlinining rules. An
individual, anonymous,
commented against Zions. Since
then, PNC and joined with,
among others, Capital One, in
commenting. Antitrust, anyone?
Inner City Press is pressing
for unsealing in the Live
Nation trial. But also, for
March 26: Good
afternoon. On behalf of Fair
Finance Watch and Inner City
Press, I wish to make part of
the record in this "paperwork
reduction" process that degree
to which the Federal Reserve
is increasingly excluding the
public from review of
expansion applications that
are subject to the Community
Reinvestment Act. It is
often said, including by the
Federal Reserve, that the
Federal Reserve is
independent. But soon after
the FDIC in late 2025 moved to
stop providing public notice
of branch applications - even
though the CRA statute
explicitly says CRA
performance is to be consider
on application for deposit
facilities - the Federal
Reserve began to follow suit.
The
Board, through the Reserve
Banks which are owned by
banks, told Fair Finance Watch
that this issue of reduced
public access was not an issue
the Fed would
consider. Then
when consumer complaints, some
of bank fraud, are raised,
including comments made to the
CFPB, the Board said these are
not substantive and won't be
consider. No matter how bad
the complaint, no matter how
pervasive the practice.
These
determinations are designed to
allow the Federal Reserve to
confine application to the
Reserve Bank, which have no
authority to deny
applications, and can only
approve them. The
Fed did this recently on the
UBS application, rubber stamp
it at the Reserve Bank level,
despite not only money
laundering but also issues
still being reviewed in
Congressional committees. But
it gets worse. Also in late
2025, the Fed allowed an $8
billion bank acquisition by a
bank holding company to take
place with no Federal Reserve
application at all. Just this
month when Fair Finance Watch
commented in advance urging
the Fed to not waiving the
application required for an
acquisition by Stock Yards
Bank, the Secretary wrote back
and denied it. It only went to
the Secretary because Stock
Yards Bank's CEO is on the
board of the Reserve
Bank. Inner City
Press did a FOIA request for
Fed records concerning how it
deals with and tries to avoid
or minimize the impact of
these conflicts of interest -
and was told, there are no
records . This is not
credible, given for example
the issues raised by the
failed Silicon Valley Bank
having been on the board of
the Federal Reserve Bank of
San Francisco. I could go on,
but have only two and a half
minutes. I
urge the Federal Reserve to
reverse this descent into
under-regulation, willful
blindness and regulatory
capture, to try to avoid a
repeat of the 2008 predatory
lending meltdown. You will be
hearing more from us. See,
American Banker, Sept 10,
2025, "The FDIC is taking the
'community' out of CRA
enforcement," by Matthew R.
Lee, here On
February 19, 2026 the Federal
Reserve announced its own
EGRPRA meeting in DC and
virtual on March 26. Fair
Finance Watch immediately
signed up and when asked,
summarized that it will raise
CRA, FOIA non-compliance,
merger rubberstamping and the
conflict of interest raised by
banks on the Federal Reserve
Banks' board, SVP on FRBSF
board (the Fed claims it has
no records about this) and
others. Meeting info online;
watch this site.
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innercitypress.com |
Friday, March 27, 2026
As US Bank Regulators Exclude Public They Heard PNC and Zions FFW to Fed on March 26
