As
Signature Bank Like SVB Fails
Frank and Cephas on its Board with
CRA Games Like First Republic
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
March 13 – Alongside
the larger
flame-out of
Silicon Valley
Bank, over the
weekend
Signature Bank
too failed.
On
Signature
Bank's board
of directors
is not only
Barney Frank
(who after
leaving
Congress
undermine his
own Dodd Frank
Act) but also
former New
York State
Superintendent
of Banks
Derrick D.
Cephas, who later
as a lawyer faced
off against Community
Reinvestment
Act protest
by Fair Finance
Watch. The
Administration
is saying that
people will be
held
accountable.
We'll see.
We'll also see
if the Fed's
solicitude to
First
Republic can pull it
back from the
brink. 1st
Republic has
been the subject
of CRA
opposition, as
reported
by Inner City
Press:
"First
Republic Bank,
which excludes
The Bronx as
well as
Brooklyn and
Queens from
its assessment
area while
funding outer
borough
slumlords,
applied to New
York bank
regulators to
open another
branch in
Manhattan.
Fair Finance
Watch filed
opposition:
'this
is a timely
comment
opposing the
application by
First Republic
Bank to open a
new insured
deposit-taking
facility at
329 Tenth
Avenue,
Borough of
Manhattan,
City of New
York 10001.
First Republic
Bank is
engaged in
redlining. Its
branches in
New York are
entirely in
Manhattan, and
only in the
most affluent
sections. It
excludes from
its CRA
Assessment
Area, in their
entirety, the
boroughs of
The Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Queens and
Staten Island.
(Inner City
Press
previously
challenged and
got changes
such
exclusionary
Assessment
Areas at Bank
of New York,
HSBC,
predecessors
of Bank of
America and
others).
Cynically,
while
excluding the
outer boroughs
from its
assessment
area, First
Republic Bank
does business
with landlords
who have been
described as
slumlords,
such as Moshe
Piller. See,
e.g., Daily
News, “Moshe
Piller, owner
of the Hunts
Point Ave.
building in
the Bronx where
two children
died when a
faulty
radiator
spewed steam
into their
bedroom.”
Fair
Finance Watch
had reviewed
First Republic
Bank's most
recent
publicly
available HMDA
data for the
NYC MSA and,
for home
purchase
loans, find
that FRB made
283 such loans
to whites, and
only three
each to Latino
and
African
American
applicants.
Its denial
rate disparity
is
astronomical:
20% denial
rate for
African
American, less
than 1% for
whites." And
this is the
bank that the
Fed now props
up.
***
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