| In Michigan
Disparate ChoiceOne Rubber
Stamped by Fed Into Detroit via
State Bank
by
Matthew R. Lee,
Patreon Substack
FEDERAL
COURT, Feb 12
–
In the state of Michigan, a
bank is moving into suburban
Detroit via merger, with a
disparate lending record. Fair
Finance Watch with Inner City
Press on the FOIA filed a
timely comment on the
Applications ChoiceOne
Financial Services, Inc.,
Sparta, Michigan; to merge
with Fentura Financial, Inc.,
and thereby indirectly acquire
The State Bank
Consider
ChoiceOne's disparate lending
record:
ChoiceOne
Bank in Michigan in 2023 -
data not yet included in any
CRA exam - made 759 mortgage
loans to whites, and only
TWENTY to African Americans.
Meanwhile it denied only 246
applications from whites,
while denying 10 of the
applications that, based on
its marketing, it received
from African Americans.
On September 17,
ChoiceOne calling itself COB
wrote in, inter alia, that
loans "denied were Home Equity
Line of Credit loans, for
which no denial reason is
given. Reporting denial
reasons for HELOCs is
optional, rather than
mandatory for COB, and COB
opts not to report." This is
far from a best practice, like
others in the bank.
On February 11,
2025 the Federal Reserve
rubber stamped the merger,
noting that FFW "further
alleged that there is an
investigation into whether
COFS violated federal
securities laws and breached
its fiduciary duties to
shareholders. This portion of
the comment concerns matters
that are outside the scope of
the limited statutory factors
that the Board is authorized
to consider when reviewing an
application under the BHC
Act." Irresponsible. FFW has
written to the Fed to ensure
that 2024 HMDA data becomes
publicly available - watch
this site.
Watch this
site.
***
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