In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew R. Lee, Video, FOIA fee denial

SOUTH BRONX, SDNY, Nov 7 – With Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting moving to undermine the US Community Reinvestment Act, his latest move has been to refuse to consider a timely CRA protest to People's United Bank by Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch.

Now with the OCC yet to be sued for its contempt for the law, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Kathy Kraninger has launched a no action letter process for fintech, giving assurances without any public notice or comment that activities can be undertaken with no concern about enforcement. See here.

In September Kraninger's CFPB issued 2018 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data - with an interface without any racial or ethnic information unlike 2017 and every previous year, undermining the entire purpose of the HMDA law. See this page.

  Now after various attempts to get CFPB to acknowledge its outrageous move in disenfranchising grassroots groups from the data meant to benefit them, which we will leave UNdescribed for now, Inner City Press on November 7 submitted this FOIA request: "Dear CFPB Chief FOIA Officer:  Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request from the CFPB any and all records as that term is defined in FOIA regarding the CFPB's decision / action to make the 2018 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data only available for download (the so-called data filter) rather then searchable and viewable in reports on the CFPB website as was the case for the 2017 data.

     To assist you in rapidly providing the requested information - this is a request for expedited treatment given that the withholding in accessible format of the 2018 data each day hinders low income community groups from commenting on bank mergers, the only enforcement mechanism of the Community Reinvestment Act to prevent bank redlining - be aware that the issue has been raised to CFPB staff in a number of conference calls including most recently to, inter alia  Brenda Muniz, Tim Lambert [some names redacted in this format.]

  These CFPB staffers were directly asked by the undersigned who at CFPB made the decision to curtail availability of HMDA data in simple format on the website. Knowing which government agency official made such a decision is a sine qua non of FOIA: the information should be provided an expedite basis, as well as all related documents." Watch this site.

On October 12 Inner City Press reported a flood of identical comments *supporting* Kraninger and the CFPB like this one on HMDA: "Comment Submitted by Anonymous Sonnenburg, I appreciate the CFPB's recent willingness to reconsider and revise its prior rulemakings." This while CFPB is still withhold the basis race and ethic information from display on its website, raw data download only unlike previous years. This is an outrage - and its having impacts. The Federal Reserve, citing the CFPB, rubber stamped Hancock Whitney - MidSouth Bank, and is prepared to close its comment periods on Simmons - Landrum and other proposed mergers while the CFPB on September 7 is still saying this: "We will retire HMDA Explorer and its API Our tool for exploring HMDA data—and the Public Data Platform API that powers it—will be shut down in the coming months. We will post additional details as they become available.  The 2018 HMDA data include a number of new data points and, as a result, are not compatible with the multi-year functionality provided by the Public Data Platform.    The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) will publish a query tool for the 2018 data in the coming months, which will be available at ffiec.cfpb.gov.  After the new query tool becomes available, the Bureau will retire the current HMDA Explorer tool and the Public Data Platform API  that powers it."  In the coming months? The CFPB has months to do this. They are intentionally making it more difficult for the public to access basic fair lending information.

 This is confirmed in a blithe "request for comments" that includes "the HMDA Platform allows users to produce and export custom data sets rather than relying on numerous static reports that few previously accessed. To enable external software developers to access some of the key services offered by the HMDA Platform, the Bureau publishes Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can be integrated into external websites, analytical tools, and industry software. The Bureau has innovated in other areas as well."

 Inner City Press has commented:   Dear Director Kraninger and others at CFPB:     On behalf of Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch, which has reviewed and publicized HMDA data for years, this is a comment both on Docket No. CFPB–2019– 0048 and specifically demanding that CFPB's troubling whitewash of the 2018 HMDA data, refusing to make it simply available with race and ethnicity information, be reversed and the data made available as below.    Your proposal (mis) states that "tthe HMDA Platform allows users to produce and export custom data sets rather than relying on numerous static reports that few previously accessed.      That is false, and is also an unacceptable pretext to make race and ethnicity HMDA data less available.  As Inner City Press has previously written to CFPB staff, so far without action: Go to  https://ffiec.cfpb.gov/data-publication/disclosure-reports   Compare disclosure for 2017 (with race and ethnicity)  https://ffiec.cfpb.gov/data-publication/disclosure-reports/2017      to 2018 - no race or ethnicity.     CFPB must make this basic information available, in simple format that can be used by grassroots groups. Already time is going by in which the 2018 data is ostensibly available but grassroots groups cannot access race and ethnicity information as they did before, which is among the goals of HMDA data.     Please explain when and where this information will be made available again.   Matthew Lee, Esq., Executive Director Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch." Watch this site.

 Previously CFPB issued a rule relieving payday lenders of the duty to comply with the ability-to-repay standard for the CFPB’s short term lending rule of November 2017.

  Here's how the CFPB breezily put it: "The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection is issuing this final rule to delay the August 19, 2019 compliance date for the mandatory underwriting provisions of the regulation promulgated by the Bureau in November 2017 governing Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans (2017 Final Rule or Rule). Compliance with these provisions of the Rule is delayed by 15 months, to November 19, 2020." Whats 15 months among friends?

The CFPB is also thumbing its nose at the US Administrative Procedures Act and proposing to undermine the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

CFPB is trying three separate but inter-related attacks. The first is to raise the threshold for reporting HMDA data, to exempt wither 36% or 53% of banks and credit unions, a proposal on which the comment period runs only to June 12, here. (Comments are going in from such banks as Village Bank and Hamilton Bank and even, incongruously, Brenda Muniz of the CFPB, see above.)

  Second is to weaken the "data points" which will be reported by those still required to under HMDA. The CFPB wants to drop such information as "reason for denial" and "debt to income ratio" - the very information that banks so often cite in response to CRA challenged by Fair Finance Watch and others, as justifying their disparities. Now the CFPB wants to not collect this supposed justification of disparities. Just trust us, is the message. Well, no. This comment period runs to July 8, here.

  Finally, without any comment period at all, the CFPB is eliminating the public's front door to the HMDA data, the HMDA Explorer web site that many community groups such as the hundreds that are members of NCRC use to assess banks in their communities. The CFPB wants to take even this away. They should be sued.  We'll have more on this. And see @SDNYLIVE.

  Otting has been sued again for offering a CRA-lax fintech bank charter. The lawsuit, filed September 14 by the New York State Department of Financial Services, says Otting "puts New York financial consumers—and often the most vulnerable ones—at great risk of exploitation by federally-chartered entities improperly insulated by New York law. The OCC’s reckless folly should be stopped." It's Vullo v Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 18-cv-8377, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. On May 2, SDNY Judge Victor Marrero allowed DFS' suit to go forward. He wrote, "As a result of the Fintech Charter Decision, New York State's regulations for over "600 non-bank financial services firms" are all at risk of becoming null and void. (Complaint ~ 10.) Of course, certain steps, namely the application for, and then the granting of, an SPNB charter must occur before a fintech firm can flout New York's laws. But those steps do not stymie DFS's standing. For both steps, DFS benefits from the supposition that the government enforces and acts on its recent, non-moribund laws. See Hedges v. Obama, 724 F.3d 170, 19 7 ( 2d Cir. 2 013) . Specifically, DFS alleges that OCC has invited fintech companies to its offices to discuss SPNB charters, potentially indicating at least some demand for, and interest in, such charters." Sounds like Otting, the secret meetings of the type the OCC has YET to disclose in response to Inner City Press' FOIA request which was delayed by the OCC disputing fee waivers as it never had before, We'll have more on this. The OCC's spokesman Bryan Hubbard had said the agency "is confident in its authority to grant national bank charters including special purpose national bank charters to companies that are engaged in the business of banking, meet the qualifications for becoming a national bank, and apply to conduct business as part of the federal banking system. The agency will vigorously defend that authority, but will not comment on pending or potential litigation.” Otting, as we've noted, as a pre-OCC history of generating dubious comment supporting mergers like his OneWest with CIT.  Otting's OCC wrote to Fair Finance Watch rebuffing Inner City Press' straight forward request for information and stating on the "Application for KleinBank, Chaska, MN to Merge with and into Old National Bank,
Evansville, IN, Dear Mr. Lee, Esq.: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) acknowledges receipt of your comments regarding the above referenced application. The comment letter requests the OCC (i) extend the public comment period and (ii) hold a public hearing on the application. The OCC has decided not to extend the comment period." Klein settled charges of racial discrimination, quite recently. We'll have more on this. #TreasureCRA.

 On the other hands, there's this, on and of which we'll have more. The protagonist, akin to Scott Pruitt until recently at the US Environmental Protection Agency, is Joe Otting. While Reuters blandly noted that he is "a former banker," the bank he headed, OneWest, was accused of predatory lending and when its acquisition by the CIT Group was challenged by Fair Finance Watch, CRC and others Otting arranged for seemingly counterfeit or compelled comments supporting the merger. In this light, Question 11 of his "Advanced Notice of Proposal Rulemaking" or ANPR is noteworthy: "11. How can community involvement be included in an evaluation process that uses a
metric-based framework?" How, indeed. Here's what Otting wrote as a banker, already long public, in support of his merger:

"From: Otting, Joseph M [at] owb.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2015 5:00 PM
Cc: Haas, Alesia Jeanne; Tran, Cindy; Kim, Glenn
Subject: Support For OneWest Bank
 
Dear Friends,
 
We were excited to announce on July 21, 2014, that IMB HoldCo LLC, the parent company of OneWest Bank entered into a merger agreement with CIT Group Inc. As part of the applications for regulatory approval of the transaction, our regulators are interested in the perspectives of the public. We are writing you to seek your support of the Bank and pending merger. This merger, if approved, would create the largest bank headquartered in Southern California with a full suite of banking products and services, which will allow us to better serve our customers. We would retain and grow jobs and are committed to continuing and expanding our efforts to serve the economic and development needs of our community. I would like to ask you to take a moment to click on the link below and submit a letter of support adding any of your own words or thoughts.
 
Please submit your letter by clicking here, or by visiting our website at www.OneWestBank.com/merger-support (if the link isn't clickable or part of the link is cut off, please copy and paste the entire URL into your browser's address bar and press Enter)
 
Thank you for your support.  Best wishes for a successful 2015 and please call on me if I can ever be of assistance.
 
Joseph M. Otting
President and CEO
OneWest Bank N.A.
888 East Walnut Street
Pasadena, CA 91101"

   There will be fight-back, under NCRC's TreasureCRA campaign. Watch this site - including on actual enforcement of CRA.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2015 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for