| PA Merger
Partner FNCB Admits Disparities As Link
Was Hit by Fair Finance Watch Now Plan
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell
Book
SOUTH BRONX, Dec
1 – Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Virginia are
portrayed as diverse and ever
progressive places. But their
banks, not so much.
Consider
for example the 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.
In October,
the FDIC required from
LINKBANK a plan to improve its
lending to African Americans,
which Inner City Press has
published on its DocumentCloud
here.
On November 10,
Fair Finance Watch commented
on an even more disparate
combination, Peoples Security
Bank and Trust Company bid to
acquire and merge with FNCB
Bank, noting that on
Pennsylvania in 2022, Peoples
Security Bank and Trust
Company made 532 HMDA-reported
loans to whites - and only
FOUR to African Americans,
while denying five
applications. FNCB
Bank in Pennsylvania in 2022
made 247 HMDA-reported loans
to whites - and only ONE to an
African Americans, while
denying three applications. A
referral should be made to the
DOJ for fair lending
violations.
Now the
banks have admitted to the
FDIC: "FNCB Bank’s preliminary
HMDA data from the first three
quarters of 2023 reveals a
significant decrease in loan
volume due to an unexpected
and unplanned change in FNCB
Bank’s mortgage processing
system. In early 2022, FNCB
Bank partnered with a third
party, Promontory MortgagePath
(“PMP”), to provide mortgage
fulfillment services. However,
in October 2022, PMP
Deputy Regional Director Scott
D. Strockoz Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation December
1, 2023 Page 6
unexpectedly announced closure
of the company due to the
unprecedented and rapid
deterioration of the mortgage
market. PMP did not provide
FNCB Bank with advance notice
of its decision. In order to
continue to serve the needs of
its communities during 2023,
FNCB Bank brokered residential
mortgage loan applications to
a third-party lender pending
the establishment of a new
processing system.
Consequently, FNCB Bank
recorded a total of 42
brokered loan applications
through September 30, 2023,
which resulted in 32 loans
originated by its third-party
lender partner. Because these
brokered loans were not closed
in FNCB Bank’s name, the loans
are not included in FNCB
Bank’s 2023 HMDA data.
Accordingly, a review of FNCB
Bank’s preliminary 2023 HMDA
data will indicate that it did
not meet 2022 peer benchmarks
for loan originations in MMCTs
and loan applications
generated in LMI tracts when
reviewed in FNCB Bank’s
assessment areas (which, for
peer comparison, includes only
those institutions in its
assessment area with an
application volume between 50%
and 200% of FNCB Bank’s). Due
to PMP’s withdrawal from its
partnership with FNCB Bank,
the following trends are
evident based on a total of 45
mortgage applications and 33
originations reported by FNCB
Bank as HMDA loans during this
period: • Applications from
MMCTs were 2.22% of total
applications. •
Majority-Minority loan
originations were 0%." Zero.
Watch this site.
If the regulators
at the FDIC means what they
claim, this application should
be denied. Watch this site.
***
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