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July 21, 2014

IMF's Lagarde Lauds Yellen, After Urging Fed to Communicate More, FOIA Qs

June 30, 2014

Dear Chair Yellen, Secretary deV. Frierson and others in the FRS:

Since 2013 Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch (ICP) has been watching with interest and concern the protested Midlands - Heartland proposal (see sample HMDA analysis below). Then it became aware of a related Change in Bank Control Act notice, which has given rise to public concern and confusion, for example:

Midland States Bank Acquisition of St. Louis Bank Continues

Published on May 16 2014 5:41 am

The previously-announced acquisition of Heartland Bank in St. Louis by Midland States Bank of Effingham is moving ahead with the formal request by the owners of Heartland to the Federal Reserve Board to acquire 10% or more of the shares of Midland States Bancorp.

Midland States Bancorp, based in Effingham, controls Midland States Bank. Midland announced last year that it was acquiring Heartland Bank, which has 13 locations in St. Louis as well as one in Denver, Colorado. As part of the transaction, the Love family, which currently owns Heartland, will be acquiring Midland States Bancorp stock.

Midland States Bancorp President and CEO Leon Holschbach said the acquisition is proceeding as planned. Holschbach said no one should be concerned that a legal notice about the Love family acquiring stock in Midland means a change in control of Midland. He said the term "control" in the legal notice means that the Loves will have as much say in the bank as their share of stock gives them. Holschbach said the vast majority of Midland States stock is still in the hands of Effingham families.

Holschbach said the acquisition of Heartland Bank by Midland States Bancorp should close early in the third quarter. He said the Heartland Bank locations will be changed to Midland States Bank locations, while a credit lending firm in St. Louis will remain Heartland Business Credit, but will be listed as a subsidiary of Midland States Bank.

That even the applicants saw confusion among the public which they sought to assuage - without, of course, saying there is a public review and comment process -- is indicative. Inner City Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request and yesterday, May 29, received this:

Dear Mr. Lee,

This is in reference to your electronic message dated and received by the Board’s Freedom of Information Office on May 28, 2014, in which you request the following:

the Change in Bank Control Notice by Andrew Sproule Love, Jr., St. Louis, Missouri, acting individually, and in concert with a control group, which consists of Andrew Sproule Love, Jr.; Trust Established U/T/W of Andrew Sproule Love FBO Andrew Sproule Love, Jr., Andrew Sproule Love, Jr., and Bank of America, N.A., as co-trustees; Inter Vivos Trust created by Andrew Sproule Love U/I/T dated December 30, 1941, as amended by instrument dated August 3, 1959, Andrew Sproule Love, Jr., and Bank of America, N.A., as cotrustees; Love Group, LLC; Love Investment Company; Love Real Estate Company; and Sarah Otto Love, all of St. Louis, Missouri; Daniel Sproule Love, New York, New York; Laura Kate Love, Bozeman, Montana; Martha Farr Love, and John Overton Robertson, both of Portland, Maine; Amy Farr Robertson, Denver, Colorado; Bruce Clendenin Robertson, Rockville, Maryland; Caroline Bill Robertson Evans, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and Laurence Arnold Schiffer, St. Louis, Missouri; to acquire voting shares of Midland States Bancorp, Inc., and thereby indirectly acquire voting shares of Midland States Bank, both in Effingham, Illinois.

Attached is the public portion of the Change in Bank Control Notice. The remainder of the FOIA request, which seeks the confidential portions of the application and seeks FRS communications with the Notificants and/or Target regarding the proposal since January 1, 2014 is currently being processed by Board staff.

Thank you,

Freedom of Information Office

Federal Reserve Board

While the turn-around time on the “public” portion of the notices is appreciated, we are concerned at how much the applicants have asked the Fed to withhold, for example “Confidential” Attachment 3, “further discussion of the merger terms.”

ICP cannot yet submit a FOIA appeal, since the FRS has yet to rule on its FOIA request. ICP hereby requests that the information be released and / or the comment period on these notices extended -- and on the proposed (now amended) merger reopened -- until the information is released.

For the record, in 2012 Midland States Bank in the St Louis MSA for refinance loans made 197 such loans to whites and only two to African Americans, none to Latinos.

For conventional home purchase loans in the St Louis MSA in 2012, Midland State made 43 such loans to whites, none to African Americans or Latinos (which received one each in Table 4-1).

For home improvement loans in the St Louis MSA, Midland State made eight such loans to whites, none to African Americans or Latinos.

On the current record, including those raised by NCRC members incorporated herein by referecne, hearings should be held and the applications / notices should not be approved.

May 26, 2014

   On rogue bank Mercantile the follow has been filed with the Federal Reserve:

This is a timely request for reconsideration of the Board's May 8, 2014 approval of the Applications of Mercantile Bank Corporation to merge with Firstbank Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Firstbank

Starting in October 2013, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch on fair lending grounds protested the Applications of Mercantile Bank Corporation to merge with Firstbank Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Firstbank. For example, in 2012 in the Grand Rapids MSA for conventional home purchase loans, Mercantile Bank lent ONLY to whites. Its mortgage company made 42 such loans to whites, NONE to African Americans or Latinos.

To assess in Mercantile's record is improving or further deteriorating, ICP asked Mercantile through counsel for its 2013 HMDA-LAR. Amazingly and tellingly, Mercantile provided its LAR only in paper form, so that it could not be computer analyzed. This contrasts to other banks' timely responses to ICP with their LAR in the requested .DAT format in which it is filed.

This is outrageous. Even with only four Governors, for the Board to allow this is a dereliction of the Board's duty under HMDA, under CRA and the BHC Act. While there are numerous other problems with Mercantile and its proposals, we are limited this request for reconsideration to this issue so that the Board must squarely face this issue and shoulder its responsibilities.

To date, the Board's inaction on Mercantile's lawless behavior is reflected by this:

“Mike Price, Mercantile’s chairman and CEO, maintained Mercantile complied with the letter of the law when it emailed the documents to Lee’s organization several weeks ago. 'Mercantile Bank has complied with everything it’s supposed to have complied with,' Price said. 'He may want electronic forms, but that’s the form we delivered it in'... Mr. Lee can interpret data anyway he wants,' Price said.. 'I know what the bank stands for and what it’s concern for the community is and its pretty darn strong.'”

In 2012 in the Grand Rapids MSA for refinance loans, Mercantile Bank lent ONLY to whites. Its mortgage company made 159 such loans to whites. It had a 100% denial rate for African American applicants. That's strong evidence of discrimination - followed by an attempt to conceal its 2013 record.

After that quote, in connection with Mercantile's shareholders' meeting, Price predicted the Board's rubber-stamp:

"'We have a pretty strong feeling that we’re very close to the end of the process and that we will have an answer fairly soon,” Price said this morning during the annual meeting of Mercantile Bank shareholders... Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch claims that Mercantile Bank has a poor record of residential mortgage lending to minorities. The objections triggered a higher level review of the deal and 'it takes a longer time to walk through the process,' said Price, who anticipates an affirmative decision from the Federal Reserve. Price said Lee is 'cherry-picking data.'”

There are simply no loans to people of color to pick: In 2012 in the Grand Rapids MSA for home improvement loans, both Mercantile's bank and mortgage company lent only to whites.

After the Board's four-Governor order

“Mike Price said, 'This approval validates our history of community involvement and outstanding performance under the Community Reinvestment Act, and follows a thorough analysis of our lending practices.'”

With Price's knowledge and presumably at his initial direction, Mercantile sought to and did conceal its 2013 record from the public.

This issue must be directly presented to each Governor, not only the FRS staff, the issue should be addressed and ruled on in writing, and the approval should be reconsidered and rescinded.

May 5, 2014

So Fed Chair Yellen went to the White House Correspondents Dinner - but didn't reconsider Umpqua - Sterling approval or explain why under CRA is it now ok to "commit to commit" later...

   Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has been challenging BancorpSouth, now this:

April 12, 2014

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Attn: Chairman Janet Yellen, Secretary Robert deV. Frierson
20th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20551

Re: The Applications of BancorpSouth to merge with Ouachita Bancshares Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Ouachita Independent Bank, and with Central Community Corporation, and thereby indirectly acquire First State Bank Central Texas, Austin, Texas

Dear Chairman Yellen, Secretary Robert deV. Frierson and others in the FRS:

This concerns the Applications of BancorpSouth to merge with Ouachita Bancshares Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Ouachita Independent Bank, and with Central Community Corporation, and thereby indirectly acquire First State Bank Central Texas, Austin, Texas.

Back on March 24, ICP submitted comments on BancorpSouth's Ouachita / Louisiana application on March 24, receiving in the two week after only this:

From: Juanetta Price <juanetta.price@frb.gov>

Date: Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 4:18 PM

Subject: Automatic reply: Request for Full Copy of, & Timely Comments On, Requesting Hearings & an Extension of the Comment Period On the Applications of BancorpSouth to merge with Ouachita Bancshares Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Ouachita Independ...

To: "Matthew R. Lee" at InnerCityPress.org

I am out of the office until March 31.

As noted in ICP's timely April 7 comments on BancorpSouth's Central Community Corporation proposal, the public portions of applications should be given on a timely basis, and timely comments acknowledged.

Then, on April 8 -- two weeks after ICP's March 24 request -- this arrived:

Subject: Public Portion of Application BancorpSouth - Ouachita
From: Windsor, Cathie [at] stls.frb.org
Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 5:53 PM
To: Lee [at] fairfinancewatch.org, Inner City Press
Cc: "Sparks, Yvonne S [at] stls.frb.org,Blase, Dennis [at] stls.frb.org, Goldberg, Amory R (Board) [at] frb.gov

Dear Mr. Lee:

Attached is the public portion of the application by BancorpSouth, Inc. to merge with Ouachita Bancshares Corporation and thereby indirectly acquire Ouachita Independent Bank.

There was no explanation of the two week delay. The next day, April 9, this arrived:

Subject: Revised Public Portion of Application BancorpSouth - Ouachita
From: Windsor, Cathie [at] stls.frb.org
Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 11:48 AM
To: Lee [at] fairfinancewatch.org, Inner City Press
Cc: Sparks, Yvonne S [at] stls.frb.org

Dear Mr. Lee:

Please disregard the public portion of the application sent to you yesterday for BancorpSouth, Inc. to merge with Ouachita Bancshares Corporation. It appears that pages 1-32 were left out.

Leaving out pages, it happens. But what of the two week gap in providing any of the public portion of the application? Inner City Press asserts and request that the comment periods be extended. ICP also notes that on April 10 BancorpSouth announced yet another proposed acquisition, of Lafayette, La.-based Knox Insurance Group, LLC.

Reviewing the 2012 HMDA data released by the FFIEC (and largely unaddressed in existing CRA performance evaluations and fair lending exams), ICP has examined BancorpSouth's conventional home purchase lending in the Jackson, Mississippi, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Memphis, Tennessee MSAs and finds them troubling.

In 2012 in the Jackson MS MSA for conventional home purchase loans, BancorpSouth made 258 loans to whites, only 17 to African Americans and five to Latinos. BancorpSouth's denial rate for whites was 7.4% while for African Americans it was 25.8% -- 3.49 times higher. This is troubling.

In 2012 in the Baton Rouge LA MSA for conventional home purchase loans in 2012, BancorpSouth made 60 such loans to whites; only three to African Americans and one to a Latino.

On March 24 we stated: next time we will analysis next-door Texas. But for now, in 2012 in the Memphis TN MSA for conventional home purchase loans, BancorpSouth made 243 loans to whites, only 14 to African Americans and four to Latinos. BancorpSouth's denial rate for whites was 4.2% while for African Americans it was 22.7% -- 5.4 times higher. This is outrageous.

On April 7 we stated: BancorpSouth in 2012 did not report any data in the Austin, Texas MSA. First State Bank Central Texas, for home purchase loans there, made 13 such loans to whites, NONE to African Americans or Latinos. Likewise, it made no refinance loans to African Americans or Latinos.

Now we note that BancorpSouth in the Lafayette, Louisiana MSA in 2012 for conventional home purchase loans, BancorpSouth made 37 loans to whites, NONE to African Americans or Latinos. In Table 4-1, BancorpSouth made 15 loans to whites and ONE to an African American applicant. That is, ALL of its home purchase loans to people of color were in Table 4-1, none in Table 4-2. This is troubling, and a pattern. The comment periods must be extended.

BancorpSouth should be required to fully disclose all branches it would close, and other changes, before the comment period closed. After for example the precedent of Huntington (and, in the Northeast, of Rockville and United in Connecticut and Massachusetts), both of which disclosed which branches they would close during the comment period, Huntington even re-starting the comment period to do so, to not extend this comment period on these five or more branches would be a major step backward for the Federal Reserve.

ICP is requesting evidentiary hearings and that this proposed acquisition, on the current record, not be approved. There is no public benefit.

If you have any questions, please immediately telephone the undersigned, at (718) 716-3540.

Very Truly Yours,

Matthew Lee, Executive Director, Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch

April 7, 2014

So now the Fed has asked Umpqua and Sterling which branches they would close...

January 27, 2014

  One thing that should be expected from the Federal Reserve is to answer its mail -- on Huntington, for example. How can a bank holding company try to buy another (Camco) without submitting an application for review by (and public comment to) the Fed? Especially given the issues that have arisen? We will have more on this.

January 6, 2014

Despite being bailed out by the public and some now waning populist rhetoric from Washington, the continuing bank merger proposals show no concern for the public or for job loss. Why should they, when President Obama considers Larry Summer, on the Board of Directors of the no-doc (and thus subprime) Lending Club, to head the Federal Reserve?

August 12, 2013

Governor Elizabeth “Betsy” Duke is leaving the Fed at the end of August. Back on May 28, 2007 we reported that “Duke listed major holdings of a previous employer, Wachovia Corp., in financial disclosure forms filed in conjunction with her nomination to join the Fed Board. According to the disclosure forms, released Friday by the Office of Government Ethics, Duke reported holdings of Wachovia stock valued at between $5,000,001 and $25 million. She also reported holding Wachovia stock options.”

July 8, 2013

When the Federal Reserve granted a public hearing on Bank of Hawaii's plan to close its branches in American Samoa, leaving it in the hands of ANZ, it looks like the Fed did not provide correct public notice. A search on FederalReserve.gov press releases for Samoa finds nothing. For shame...

March 11, 2013

Ah, Investors... A response from the Federal Reserve “Board’s Freedom of Information office on March 1, 2013. Board staff are currently processing the remainder of your FOIA request, which seeks the confidential portions of the Notice and seeks any and all records reflecting FRS communications with the applicant regarding the proposal. The Office of the Secretary will send you a separate response addressing the remainder of the FOIA request."

March 4, 2013

With Bank of Hawaii trying to close over 50% of the branches in American Samoa, why would the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco gave a post to Bank of Hawaii chairman Peter Ho. We say, to remove taint of conflict of interest, now MUST hold public hearing on the planned American Samoa branch closures....

February 25, 2013

The Federal Reserve tells Inner City Press that

“To facilitate secure email exchanges with the Federal Reserve, please see the attached file and link that contain instructions for registering with the Zix e-mail system. The web address is

https:// [THE WEB ADDRESS IS NOT RESPONSIVE TO YOUR FOIA REQUEST]”

Yes it is...

February 18, 2013

Hitting a new low, Customers Bancorp on its application to the Federal Reserve to acquire Acacia Federal Savings Bank has tried to withhold from Inner City Press the entirety of its response to Fed questions. We will be pursuing - the documents, and Customers Bancorp.

Meanwhile the Fed has reportedly sent a February 11 Q&A to Live Oak, with a confidential attachment -- but none of it, even the non-confidential portion, was sent to Inner City Press. Watch this site.

February 11, 2013

And now we know: while the Federal Reserve told community groups that the comment period on Live Oak – Government Loan Solutions, published in the Federal Register, had been in error, internally the lawyer for Live Oak asked the Fed on December 21, “Are we close on the Live Oak notice? I know the comment period has not closed quite yet, but I will be out of the office most of next week, so I thought I would check in this morning.”

The comment period still open, but the Fed “close” to deciding and approving anyway. This is shameful. An appeal is being filed with the withheld information, presumably even more shameful.

February 4, 2013

Talk about grading of the curve: last Fall Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch began challenging Customers Bancorp, then on its proposal to buy Acacia. Now, Customers tells the Federal Reserve that "Fair Lending training is required annually of all employees with customer contact. It is administered via an online, self-paced course through the Edcomm Learning Management System. The employee is required to demonstrate adequate mastery of the course materials by completing a test at the conclusion of the course and obtaining a passing grade (minimum 80% correct).

80% is good enough for fair lending? For the Federal Reserve?

January 28, 2013

More Fed FOIA shenanigans:

This is a timely FOIA appeal to the Federal Reserve Board's January 11 partial denial of my FOIA request of some 11 weeks earlier for all portions of the applications / notices by Guido Hinojoso to acquire control of Anchor Commercial Bank for which Guido Hinojosa and his outside counsel improperly requested confidential treatment.

Some of these arrived some eleven weeks later, but with redactions to basic managerial information such as the answer to "have you ever been dismissed from past employment" including in the banking field. Biographical, 2b. Similarly, the FRB has redacted all answers about past bank merger applications, if they were denied (Biographical 5) including a paragraph answer about Change in Control (5b) and lawsuits (5e). All such information must be released.

Still partially redacted Exhibit 1G lists $500,000 purchase of shares in Sunrise Bank in 2011, and $5,500,000 for Anchor Commercial Bank in 2012. But it is now 2013. Was the gun jumped? Has this plan changed? The rest of the page is blacked out and must be released, and the comment period extended.

The "relationship to Notificant" column for both Patricio Hinojosa Jimenez and Jorge Hinojosa Jimenez is redacted - why? A member of CBIFSA's board of directors is redacted in full -- why? These must be released.

The Recitals, Definitions and much of "Subscription" of the Subscription Agreement are redacted - why? This must be released.

In "Turnaround," the "Summary of the Bank's Condition" is redacted - this must be released.

The "Commitments" (Confidential Exhibit 3) are withheld - but must be released. ICP is appealing this and all other redactions and withholdings.

The Deputy Secretary's letter (the "Denial") cites exemptions 4 and 6 and says their application to the heavily redacted pages provided is clear. It is not. Nor does the Denial state how many pages have been withheld in full.

January 21, 2013

Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker has reiterated his claim that then-New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner in 2007 notified Bank of America and other financial institutions that the U.S. central bank was considering lowering a critical interest rate.

January 21, 2013

Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker has reiterated his claim that then-New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner in 2007 notified Bank of America and other financial institutions that the U.S. central bank was considering lowering a critical interest rate.

January 14, 2013

Inner City Press has submitted a FOIA request to the Federal Reserve for all records related to the Federal Reserve System's comment period on Live Oak Bancshares' application to acquire Government Loan Solutions, Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio -- the initial comment period on which was said by the Fed to be January 4: http://www.ftc.gov/os/fedreg/2012/12/121210agencycollectionfrn.pdf

However at some later stage the Fed decided to shorten the comment period. We are specifically requesting all records concerning the change in comment date, as well as a full copy of Live Oak's application and all records reflecting the Federal Reserve System's communcations with or about Live Oak Bancshares or Government Loan Solutions for the past six months.

Watch this site.

January 7, 2013

The total lack of accountability of the Federal Reserve Board and of those it purports to regulate, for example Capital One which was fined $150 million in July 2012 for predatory practices, is on display in a Freedom of Information Act appeal denial issued on January 2 by Governor Jerome Powell, to Inner City Press.

Upholding in full the withholding of over 2000 pages of records related to Capital One's compliance or non-compliance with commitments it made during its NCRC protested purchases of ING DIRECT and HSBC's subprime credit card operations, Powell ruled that not one page, or even a portion of a page, would be released.

This is at odds, for example, with FOIA appeal responses obtained this year by Inner City Press from other Federal agencies. In other FOIA news, Inner City Press is a media amicus in this just filed brief in McBurney v. Young, No. 12-17 of the US Supreme Court.

But the Federal Reserve, along with Capital One, will have to be addressed in 2013. Watch this site.

December 31, 2012

The Federal Reserve and its Governor Jerome H. Powell have hit new lows. After delaying more than 40 days to rule on Inner City Press' FOIA appeal of withholdings about M&T - Hudson City Bancorp, Powell in a seven page ruling finds that the Fed mis-invoked FOIA exemptions 6 and 8 -- but then refuses to release the information, now invoking exemption 4. This is much worse even than previous FOIA appeal rulings -- a new low. We'll have more on this.

December 24, 2012

Back in August, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch wrote to Customers Bancorp for its mortgage data, expressing some concerns. A month later, at the deadline, some data was provided. It was disparate and Inner City Press comments on Customers' Acacia application. There were questions from the Federal Reserve, some FOIA requests. Now, Customer's has passed back the drop-dead date from December 31 to January 31. But how do they know it will be approved by then?

December 17, 2012

The Federal Reserve has responded thusly to a Freedom of Information Act request from Inner City Press:

To facilitate secure email exchanges with the Federal Reserve, please see the attached file and link that

contain instructions for registering with the Zix e-mail system. The web address is

https:// WITHHELD

For shame... Also From FirstMerit's submission to the Federal Reserve about Citizens Republic, the entire "Environmental Matters" section is blacked out, in response to Inner City Press' FOIA request...

December 10, 2012

Sometimes credit has to be given where it's due. The Federal Reserve increasingly grants large banks insider status, discussing their merger ideas with them before they are announced, allowing the large banks to be represented by recent Federal Reserve Board lawyers.

But now on the smaller Customers Bancorp - Acacia proposal, the Federal Reserve left Inner City Press a voice mail before they called Customers, then had information that the Fed requested sent to Inner City Press. Customers has another merger application coming up -- we'll see if the disparities and weakness in their record can be made to change.

Meanwhile, Inner City Press has filed this;

This is a formal request under FOIA for the portions of FirstMerit's November 30 response to FRS questions which were not sent to Inner City Press.

To virtually every FRS question about its proposal to acquire Citizens Republic, which ICP timely challenged and made a still pending FOIA request about, FirstMerit states, See Confidential Exhibit. For example, to FRS Question 1, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 1."

To FRS Question 2, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 2."

To FRS Question 3, FirstMerit says, "See Confidential Exhibit 3."

To FRS Question 5, FirstMerit says, "See Confidential Exhibit 4."

To FRS Question 6, FirstMerit says, "See Confidential Exhibit 6."

To FRS Question 7, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 6."

To FRS Question 8 and 9, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 7."

To FRS Question 10, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 8."

To FRS Question 11, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 9."

To FRS Question 12, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 10."

To FRS Question 14, FirstMerit says only, "See Confidential Exhibit 11."

This is outrageous, and makes a mockery of the FRS' stated Rules against Ex Parte Communications. This is a timely challenge to all of the withholdings.

December 3, 2012

What is it about the Federal Reserve System, that one submits comments on a merger by e-mail, then awaits for snail mail confirmation? See, FirstMerit, Cleveland Fed.

November 26, 2012

Hudson City Savings Bank, which M&T is trying to buy, is in New Jersey but not of it. When ICP / Fair Finance Watch challenged the deal, highlighting disparities in Hudson City's record, Hudson City had no response at all. Now it has been challenged from New Jersey as well. Meanwhile the Fed has had no response to the absurdity of it providing heavily redacted records of its pre-announcement meetings with M&T, an hour before the comment period was set to expire. This is not transparency. Watch this site.

November 19, 2012

So the Fed hauled off and approved Mitsubishi UFJ to acquire UnionBanCal -- in footnote 22 it recites that ICP / Fair Finance Watch timely raise the issue of the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The Fed says that "the Board is monitoring the course of the investigations and will consider, to the extent of the Board's authority, the findings in those investigations as they develop."

To the extent of the Fed's authority??

In in footnote 44, it says that the issue ICP raised about Tax Refund Loans is a thing of the past. If so, no thanks to the Fed...

November 12, 2012

Fed Met M&T 10 Days Before Hudson Deal, FOIA Shows, Appeal & Protest

By Matthew R. Lee, Exclusive

SOUTH BRONX, November 9 -- When M&T on August 27 announced biggest bank merger deal of the year, a $3.81 billion proposal to buy Hudson City Savings Bank, it was not the first time the Federal Reserve had heard about.

  Inner City Press, which has challenged M&T's application under the Community Reinvestment Act, on November 9 got a belated Freedom of Information Act response from the Federal Reserve Board, less than two hours before the Fed said the extended comment period would close.

  The documents released to Inner City Press show that on August 17, a full ten days before the public announcement, Federal Reserve Bank of New York official John Ricketti wrote to five others within the Fed:

"Wilmers called me this afternoon to inform me that M&T is looking to acquire M&T. [sic] He will be talking to his board about the acquisition at next Tuesday's board meeting and asked to come in Wednesday to talk to us (we're setting something up for late Wednesday afternoon). I'll be up in Buffalo for the board meeting to discuss the [REDACTED] and expect to learn more from him Monday night (I have a one-on-one meeting with him)."

  After that, much is redacted. Click here to view.

   The Fed advised M&T that its application to buy Hudson would probably be protested -- accurately, given that Hudson City in 2011, for conventional home purchase loans in the New York City Metropolitan Statistical Area, to make 765 such loans to whites and only FIVE to African Americans.

  Of this, a Fed memo of August 24 said "this will require review of any issues that are raised and [REDACTED].

 To view, click on cover email, and talking points One and Two.

  After the August 17 contact but before the proposal was announced, the Fed met on August 22 from 4:30 to 5:30 with "Wilmers" and Rene Jones, Michael Pinto and outside council Rodgin Cohen.

  A slide presentation was made, much of which including on Due Diligence and Complexity has been withheld.

  After the meeting, the New York Fed's Ivan Hurwitz sent a memo to the Fed in Washington, most of which has been blacked out.

  On August 24, the Fed's John Ricketti wrote another memo, with talking points, about his meeting with Rodgin Cohen and Rene Jones, much of its redacted.

Then on August 27, Cohen [Rodge] called the Fed's Tom Baxter, and Wilmer called "Dudley," both summaries redacted.

After the deal was announced, M&T had more meetings with the Fed on September 7. Only after they submitted an application did Inner City Press submitted a FOIA request on October 2, and an initial protest, on October 7.

Now Inner City Press has timely requested a further extension of the comment period, to review the documents so belatedly released, and to appeal what is being withheld.

Withheld is the substantive part of "Confidential" Exhibit O, what M&T will actually PAY to Merger Sub, and nearly all of the anti-money laundering program, material changes and due diligence findings. The Board Resolutions and Agreement and Plan of Merger are all blacked out, which is ridiculous.

November 5, 2012

So why hasn't the Fed asked, or M&T answered, questions about its application to acquire Hudson City Savings Bank? We are waiting...

October 29, 2012

The Fed has yet to address its revolving door. The response from M&T's outside counsel to ICP's October 7 protest was signed by a former FRB staff attorney who worked on mergers, with those still there. With all due respect, how is this appropriate? ICP has asked. Watch this site.

October 22, 2012

So when push comes to shove, the Federal Reserve doesn't even enforce the HHI Index. In Madison, Indiana last week, the Fed approved: "On consummation of the proposed merger, the resulting institution would remain the largest insured depository institution in the market, controlling deposits of approximately $249.7 million, which would represent approximately 46.3 percent of the market deposits. The HHI would increase by 234 points to 3284."

It fails the stated test, but the Fed approved it...

October 15, 2012

On October 5, Trustmark wrote to the Federal Reserve and said is was extending the planned closing date of the merger into 2013, because it has rightfully not obtained regulatory approval. Trustmark's lawyers mailed Inner City Press a copy of their email to the Fed -- we'll put it online here -- and then four days after the email, put out a press release about the extension (but not the protest).

On October 11, after its press release and uninformed reports of it, Trustmark answered another round of questions from the Federal Reserve. But the Fed has yet to extend the comment period. Watch this site.

October 8, 2012

Ah, if only Bernanke would apply his baseball paean to Davey Johnson to CRA, and see fit to deny a merger on CRA grounds from time to time, not least to "help in the long run"...

October 1, 2012

On appeal, and only on appeal, the Fed through Governor Jay Powell has deigned to belatedly release Trustmark's market share of deposits in Jackson, Mississippi and basic information about its anti money laundering program. Why was it withheld? What accountability is there for that?

September 24, 2012

From the troubling department of the revolving door: "Patrick M. Parkinson, former director of supervision for the Federal Reserve board, has joined Promontory Financial Group. After 31 years at the central bank, he will serve as a managing director at Promontory, consulting on regulatory and risk management issues in Washington.As the director of banking supervision and regulation from 2009 to 2011."

This should not be permitted.

September 17, 2012

So after the Fed handed out an approval without any mention or consideration of it, now it's reported that BB&T will close 21 branches in South Florida as it swallows BankAtlantic -- nine from BB&T and 12 from BankAtlantic. And, 365 jobs will be cut by Feb. 1, 2013...

Meanwhile Fed Governor Jerome H. Powell, formerly of Deutsche Bank and the Carlyle Group, has belatedly ruled on Inner City Press' June 30 FOIA appeal about Mitsubishi UFJ, largely rubber stamping the withholding but saying that some additional pages mis-withheld under Exemption 8 will be released. But these wrongfully withheld pages weren't included with Powell's letter, and haven't been e-mailed.

The Fed did belatedly send a copy of its August 27 to Trustmark, after it was raised. Better late than never.

September 10, 2012

After Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch commented on Trustmark's application to acquire BankTrust, its law firm Wachtell Lipton replied, saying that a six to one denial rate disparity was okay. Now the Federal Reserve has asked Trustmark and Wachtell Lipton questions about the reply, including about Somerville Bank & Trust, who reviewed and claimed no discrimination? The responses are not convincing - and one wonders why the Fed didn't send ICP a copy of the questions, when they were asked...

September 3, 2012

The House Financial Services Committee has given the NY Fed a one-month extension, from September 1, to hand over thousands of documents related to the interest rate manipulation scandal. Many mega-banks including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, UBS, Bank of America and Royal Bank of Scotland Group have been under investigation from regulators around the world over colluding to manipulate LIBOR.

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve Board has tried to withhold from Inner City Press information about the LIBOR scandal and Mitsubishi UFJ -- but Inner City Press has appealed under the Freedom of Information Act....

in its headquarters Metropolitan Statistical Area of Jackson, Mississippli in 2010, Trustmark for conventional home purchase loans had a denial rate for African Americans more than SIX TIMES HIGHER than for whites: 44.7% denial rate for African Americans, versus 7.3% for whites. It had a 100% denial rate for these and refinance loans for Latinos.

  MEANWHILE, the Federal Reserve in an August 22 FOIA response blacks out even Trustmark's market share of deposits in Jackson -- clearly public information. The Fed has hit a new low.

August 20, 2012

   Based on troubling disparities in mortgage lending in the Deep South,ICP  Fair Finance Watch has filed Community Reinvestment Act comments with the Federal Reserve on Mississippi-based Trustmark's application to acquire Mobile, Alabama based BankTrust.

  In its headquarters Metropolitan Statistical Area of Jackson, Mississippli in 2010, Trustmark for conventional home purchase loans had a denial rate for African Americans more than SIX TIMES HIGHER than for whites: 44.7% denial rate for African Americans, versus 7.3% for whites. It had a 100% denial rate for these and refinance loans for Latinos.

  In the Gulfport - Biloxi MSA in 2010, for conventional home purchase loans Trustmark made 40 loans to whites and only four to African Americans.

  In the Memphis MSA in 2010, for conventional home purchase loans Trustmark made 34 loans to whites and only two to African Americans.

In the Houston MSA in 2010, for conventional home purchase loans Trustmark made 35 loans to whites and NONE to African Americans.

  ICP  Fair Finance Watch has requested an evidentiary hearing into these lending patterns. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has confirmed receipt and asked the Fed's Freedom of Information Act unit and more importantly Trustmark and its outside counsel for responses. Watch this site.

August 13, 2012

So what WAS the Federal Reserve System doing about Standard Chartered for all this time?

August 6, 2012

Ah, impunity. The Fed's BB&T - BankAtlantic order, issued days after Governor Jerome Powell withheld yet more information from ICP on FOIA appeal, notes its protest

"referenced an SEC lawsuit alleging that the chairman of BA Bancorp had engaged in a pattern of misleading BA Bancorp’s investors through selective and untimely disclosures with respect to problem loans. The individuals named in the lawsuit will not be associated with BB&T or BankAtlantic after consummation of the proposed transaction."

So after untold scandals and the financial meltdown, the Fed's response? "Bygones."

July 30, 2012

Federal Reserve Seems to Pre-Approve Mergers, BB&T FOIA Release to Inner City Press Shows

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

SOUTH BRONX, July 29 -- This month the Federal Reserve Board quietly announced a willingness to pre-approve, or to indicate a willingness to approve, bank mergers proposals even before the public is made aware of them.

  To some, this shows how little the regulator has learned from the financial meltdown.

  Inner City Press has also just learned, via a Freedom of Information Act request and appeal, that the Fed has even this year been entertaining bank merger proposals under code names such as "Project Palm," assigned to BB&T's proposal with BankAtlantic.

   Click here for Governer Jerome Powell's response to Inner City Press' FOIA Appeal. Click here for some of the documents released. 

   The deal is still pending.

  When the Fed on July 11 announced the policy by a "Supervisory Letter," its press release provided a telephone number in Washington for media inquiries. Inner City Press called the number and asked among other things how it would impact review under the Community Reinvestment Act, which involves public notice and comment.

  Inner City Press will not here report the name of the person answering, because it was insisted that no name could be given.

  Rather Inner City Press was directed to the FOIA footnote of the Supervisory Letter, that some records about the pre-approvals will be available, after the fact, under FOIA.

  But while the Fed is pre-approving, the public will have no way to know what records to request. This can be called false transparency.

  Even on BB&T's "Project Palm," it is only now that the Fed releases records half-showing its response to Inner City Press' February 2012 comment on and against the proposal.

  The just-released records show that on February 7, Claudia A. VonPervieux of Fed staff was "working on a draft rejection letter for M.Lee" of Inner City Press when the Fed belatedly realized that the Press was right: public notice had disappeared such that one couldn't know what to comment on.

   And so a brief extension of the comment period was granted, but only for Inner City Press, which did not cure the problem of lack of notice to the public at large. See released e-mails, attached. And so it goes at the Fed. Watch this site.

July 23, 2012

The Fed has done it again: improperly withheld basic information about an application, as admitted even by the pro-bank Governor now in charge of ruling on FOIA appeals. Governor Jay Powell, recently withholding ING - Capital One information, now finds on another application (BB&T) that information was improperly withheld under Exemption 5 and can now be released including records that "describe transaction filings and discuss comment period timings and news articles." The rest -- at least 156 full pages -- he withholds.

Meanwhile one of Governor Powell's ex employers has decided to hold onto its stake in a bank in Taiwan, Ta Chong. How does or will Powell recuse himself? Watch this site.

July 16, 2012

Last week, the Federal Reserve put out a letter offering "pre-filing" review of merger applications to banks. Inner City Press decided to call the number on the Fed's press release with a "media inquiry."

At first they said they'd give an on the record answer. Then they offered only "deep background" not attributable to the Fed -- and even then, only directed ICP to the FOIA part of the letter. This... is what lets scandals like LIBOR and predatory lending happen.

July 9, 2012

Just filed with the Fed:

This is a FOIA appeal to the Federal Reserve Board's "reconsideration" and partial denial, dated June 29, of my FOIA request of February 17 regarding BB&T's proposal to acquire BankAtlantic.

First, I note that I submitted an appeal -- now, rather than acknowledge the improper withholdings appealed from (and have that recorded for example in the FRB's annual FOIA report), the FRB decides to call it a "reconsideration," from which I now submit this second appeal. This record below must be addressed in the response to this (second) appeal.

The Associate Secretary's June 29 letter (the "Denial") outright withholds 53 pages, saying it's clear why. Again, it's not - this is an appeal of all those withholdings.

Why is the October 28, 2011 "update on Project Palm" being withheld? Also, information about the 12/02/2011 call, and the E-Apps notifications of 12/13/2011 and 12/16/2011, and the Thro to Seld e-mail of the latter date. Also the Cox to Smith e-mail of 01/25/2012.

ICP is explicitly challenging all withholdings concerning the extension of the comment period, including but not limited to the 02/06/2012 and 02/07/2012 emails.

July 2, 2012

The Federal Reserve's FOIA response to Inner City Press about the applications of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd and UnionBanCal Corporation to acquire Pacific Capital Bancorp & Santa Barbara Bank & Trust outright withholds 634 pages, and we have appealed.

But what's provided points to more. For example:

Subject: Unionbancal/Pacific Capital BC transaction - call Wed?
From: Elisa Johnson
To: Kenneth Binning; Cynthia Holbrook; Steven Takizawa Cc: Jose Alonso
Date: 02/21/2012 04:53 PM

Hello everyone -

I just took a call from Mark Gillett of Union Bank wanting to have a preliminary call tomorrow at 11am to discuss the filing requirements for Unionbancal's acquisition of Pacific Capital BC, Santa Barbara. Union is in the midst of conducting their due diligence . This will be an all cash transaction. FYI: the code name for this deal is Pebble Beach. The structure of the deal has "gelled"

But no earlier records are provided. And many records are withheld as "not responsive" -- with "also b(5)" added later in a different font. The Fed continues to abuse FOIA - we have appealed. Watch this site.

June 25, 2012

After Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch challenged the applications of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to acquire Pacific Capital Bancorp & Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, the applicants decided to withhold basic information about their Community Reinvestment Act programs.

Then Inner City Press filed Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals. Now, Mitsubishi related some information, while blacking out columns and columns, and most of its response on the CRA. Meanwhile, the Fed by letter dated June 18 says it is withholding 634 pages, but is providing other information, which we've yet to receive. We'll have more on this.

June 18, 2012

So the Federal Reserve, belatedly ruling on June 6 on Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch FOIA request of February 17 regarding BB&T and BankAtlantic, says "156 full pages and portions of other pages (as will be apparent to you from the face of the documents to which redactions have been made) will be withheld from you." We aim to appeal - watch this site.

June 11, 2012

The Federal Reserve has issued a flurry of FOIA denials and extensions of time. Then comes a heavily redacted submission TO the Fed from Sullivan & Cromwell, on Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group's application to buy Pacific Capital Bancorp and long time RALs rogue Santa Barbara Bank & Trust.

Asked about its due diligence on the RALs rogue, Sullivan & Cromwell say "see Confidential Exhibit 1" -- but do not provide it. Well, we DO want to see it. Watch this site.

June 4, 2012

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has confirmed receipt of the comments of Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch. While the letter of Kenneth R. Binning of the FRBSF is dated May 9, it wasn't mailed until May 29. Maybe THIS is one of the reasons the Federal Reserve didn't stop the subprime meltdown...

May 29, 2012

Last week Inner City Press RSVP-ed for and went to cover a speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York William Dudley. But from CFR's overflow run to which the media was confined, ICP was not able to ask any questions, whether about bank accounts for UN member states or why it is appropriate for JPMorgan Chase CEO to be on the Federal Reserve Bank of NY board of directors, given that the FRBNY directly regulated JPMC, which has recently gambled and lost $3 billion and counting. This last question, Inner City Press submitted twice by email, but it was not posed. Nor has it been answered since.

Months after the Federal Reserve approved the applications of Capital One and ING DIRECT, now the Fed admits it improperly withheld information in response to Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals by Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch. A little late, isn't it? We need new regulators. Watch this site.

May 21, 2012

When the Federal Reserve approved on May 9 the applications to acquire 80% of Bank of East Asia, it did NOT require an application from or review the real party in interest: the Chinese government. Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch raised the issue, this loophole created by the Fed, under which government's like the DPRK or Syria or Bahrain could acquire a bank in the US without any review of the risks created. The Fed merely cites the loophole it opened up itself (that governments are not companies -- an exception intended for US-based governments like states), then says that "Congress has provided other US agencies the authority to review national security issues in proposals by foreign companies to acquire US companies."

The Fed is missing, intentionally, the point: ownership of an insured bank by a foreign government that might even be subject to regime change by the US or its allies is a risk that the Fed must consider. Watch this site.

May 14, 2012

So sleazy Deutsche Bank, AFTER de-certifying with the Fed, now pays out a governmental settlement for predatory loans defrauding FHA. Wouldn't it seem like time for the Fed to reconsider that decertification?

May 7, 2012

As Deutsche Bank Evades Fed, Tarullo Alludes to "Some Private Actors," Blurs FOIA & Volcker Rulemaking

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 2 -- When the Federal Reserve's Daniel Tarullo spoke Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations about regulatory reform, he did not mention a single bank or financial institution.

  Inner City Press asked him about Deutsche Bank, which earlier this year split off its investment banking business so as to avoid Fed regulation. Tarullo on March 22 told the Senate the Fed would have to "respond" to this, that it had some impact on this thinking on regulation.

  Tarullo replied, "Matthew, what I said was it effected my thinking, not change, that implies a dramatic shift." Then he answered, six minutes in all, without once mentioning Deutsche Bank. He said that "the kind of changes some private actors are engaged in will have to effect the scope of our regulations."

  These regulations, he said, will be "under 165... to make sure we can implement Congressional concern."

  Inner City Press also asked Tarullo if he claimed the Fed has gotten more transparent since the financial meltdown, noting the Fed's recent denial in full of access to over 2000 pages responses to an Inner City Press FOIA request.

  Here now is an online copy of the Fed's FOIA denial

  Tarullo, which has previously heard of FOIA problems at the Fed, said he didn't know which FOIA request was referred to, then answered about administrative rule making. He said "for rule making, we get comments" and now distinguish "unique comments -- that is, not form letters."

He said there have been "17,000 Volcker Rule submissions... Absorbing all the comments is a substantial undertaking. If it takes longer to give due respect to comments," so be it.

  The FOIA request referred to was about Capital One's compliance, since the Fed's approval order on Capital One - ING DIRECT, including with Capital One's commitments to open branches and lend $180 billion" and about Capital One firing 490 assistant branch managers despite having made representations about increasing service.

  Amazingly, the Fed found 2200 pages responsive but provided not a single document, instead saying that "your request is denied in full," including as to each and every record "regarding with the Approval Order" of Capital One - ING DIRECT. ICP commented extensively on that application, as did NCRC, and the Fed's order cites the comments and Capital One's responses and representations. Now the Fed denies access to every record about compliance with the representations.

Inner City Press' request included a specific reference to branch closings, for example, which are not confidential. Additionally, information submitted and reviewed about compliance with Capital One's representations would contain HMDA data, which is public and not withholdable.

Even since the April 10 request, ICP on April 22 submitted to the Fed information about an admission by Capital One of fraud on consumers:

"Earnings power of HSBC card deal to drown out near-term noise, says Capital One CEO," April 19, 2012

Fairbank also reported a $75 million accrual for customer refunds stemming from what he described as 'instances in which phone sales people didn't adhere to our scripts and sales policy when cross-selling products to our credit card customers.' He said it is very important that Capital One ensures customers bought the unspecified products in the manner the company intended."

Just because it SOUNDS like the responsive records might include some withholdable information, it is outrageous to withheld each and every responsive record, citing the catch-all Exemption 8. The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA. Watch this site.

April 30, 2012

The Federal Reserve just continues to hit new lows, leading to this FOIA appeal by ICP:

This is an immediate FOIA appeal to the Federal Reserve Board's denial dated April 26, 2012 of my FOIA request of April 10, 2012 for "all records in the possession of the FRS concerning Capital One's compliance, since the FRB's approval order on Capital One - ING DIRECT, including with Capital One's commitments to open branches and lend $180 billion" and about Capital One firing 490 assistant branch managers despite having made representations about increasing service.

Amazingly, the Fed provides not a single document, instead saying that "your request is denied in full," including as to each and every record "regarding with the Approval Order" of Capital One - ING DIRECT. ICP commented extensively on that application, as did NCRC, and the Fed's order cites the comments and Capital One's responses and representations. Now the Fed denies access to every record about compliance with the representations. This is a new low.

Inner City Press' request included a specific reference to branch closings, for example, which are not confidential. Additionally, information submitted and reviewed about compliance with Capital One's representations would contain HMDA data, which is public and not withholdable.

Even since the April 10 request, ICP on April 22 submitted to the Fed information about an admission by Capital One of fraud on consumers:

"Earnings power of HSBC card deal to drown out near-term noise, says Capital One CEO," April 19, 2012

Fairbank also reported a $75 million accrual for customer refunds stemming from what he described as 'instances in which phone sales people didn't adhere to our scripts and sales policy when cross-selling products to our credit card customers.' He said it is very important that Capital One ensures customers bought the unspecified products in the manner the company intended."

Just because it SOUNDS like the responsive records might include some withholdable information, it is outrageous to withheld each and every responsive record, citing the catch-all Exemption 8. The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to this appeal.

April 23, 2012

Who knew? The Federal Reserve, which barely enforces the Community Reinvestment Act in the US where it is the law, last week told a group of visitors from Central America that perhaps they could assist in rating banks' performance in countries outside the US. We'll see.

April 16, 2012

MetLife is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, but now it seeks to escape Federal Reserve regulation by selling its deposits to GE Capital Financial. Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has now opposed the transaction - watch this site.

April 9, 2012

The Fed has, so far, allowed BB&T to amend its application to acquire BankAtlantic, to tell ICP about its application late, and not yet to extend the comment period. ICP has complained:

This is a third comment on the applications by BB&T to acquire scandal-plagued BankAtlantic. BB&T has significantly amended the proposal after an adverse court ruling -- the changed structure should trigger a new public comment period.

Troublingly, while BB&T outside law firm Wachtell, Lipton send the amendments to the Fed on March 19 by courier, they were only sent to Inner City Press the follow (this) month. So Inner City Pres is requesting an extension of the comment period.

It would be ludicrous to argue that the changes to the proposal, the result of a court order, are not substantial. As such, it is unclear to ICP why no new public notice appears to have been published.

As described, BB&T would assume about $285 million of BankAtlantic Bancorp TruPS obligations in exchange for a 95% preferred interest in a newly established limited liability company, which will comprise about $423 million of loans and $17 million of other net assets. BB&T has estimated $350 million of recoverable preference value in the limited liability company. Once BB&T recovers $285 million in preference amount from the limited liability company, its interest in the company will terminate. BB&T would also have an incremental $35 million guarantee to assure BB&T's recovering within seven years of the $285 million preference amount.

ICP has recently obtained BB&T 2011 HMDA-LAR and will be commenting on its, in a week's time. The comment period must be extended.

April 2, 2012

  In the first study of the just-released 2011 mortgage lending data, Inner City Press and Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch have found that banking behemoths Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo continued with high cost loans and disparities by race and ethnicity in denials and higher-cost lending.

2011 is the eighth year in which the data distinguishes which loans are higher cost, over a federally-defined rate spread of 1.5 percent over Treasury bill yields.

The just released data show that Citigroup confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 3.38 times more frequently than whites in 2010, worse that its 2.25 disparity in 2009, Fair Finance Watch has found.

Citigroup confined Latinos to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 2.42 times more frequently than whites in 2010, worse that its 1.72 disparity in 2009, the data show.

“Even after the bailouts, lending disparities grew worse and not better," said Fair Finance Watch. "Regulatory laxity, at least on fair lending, has continued despite the financial meltdown caused by predatory lending."

For JPMorgan Chase, the disparity for African Americans in 2011 was 2.21; for the largest of Wells Fargo's many HMDA data reporters, the disparity for African Americans in 2011 was 2.28.

"The Federal Reserve is becoming more and more bank-friendly, including with the recent nomination of former hedge funder and Deutsche Bank official Jay Powell for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. It is still not clear if the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will get to this problem," Fair Finance Watch continued. "The disparities in the 2011 mortgage data of these banks further militate for aggressively watchdogging and breaking up these banks."

Growing Southern bank BB&T, even absent its subprime unit Lendmark, in 2011 confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 2.59 times more frequently than whites

Fair Finance Watch has continued its enforcement project in the South, most recently raising issues under the Community Reinvestment Act on BB&T's proposal to acquire BankAtlantic. In response, the Federal Reserve Board extended the comment period. Much of BB&T's application has been blacked out or withheld in full, which Inner City Press is challenging under the Freedom of Information Act.

Inner City Press & FFW have also joined others concerned with Deutsche Bank's decertification as a financial services holding company to escape Dodd Frank including its capital adequacy rules -- particularly given Deutsche Bank's role in the subprime scandal, as lender, securitizer and now major forecloser.

The law required that the 2011 data be provided by March 31, following March 1 joint requests by Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press. Several banks did not provide their data by the deadline, most notably Capital One and Bank of America, despite confirming receipt of the request. Further studies will follow: watch this site.

March 26, 2012

Deutsche Bank was big into subprime, as lender, securitizing and foreclosing trustee. But now that the Dodd-Frank law is coming into effect, Deutsche Bank is restructuring to avoid the law's requirements. Fed Governor Tarullo has said this gives pause. And what will he and the Fed do?

March 19, 2012

So the FRB stiffly and belated went on Twitter and was greeted by... the CFPB, already there.

March 12, 2012

"The Federal Reserve is reportedly stalling some banks' proposals to pay dividends and repurchase shares, after it determined that the firms are miscalculating the potential losses on consumer debt in an event of a financial crisis." A little late, isn't it?

March 5, 2012

On the Volcker Rule, Fed board members and staff members met with JPMorgan Chase 16 times, Bank of America 10 times, Goldman Sachs 9 times, Barclays 9 times & Morgan Stanley 9 times -- what about Citigroup?

Even as requests for reconsideration of Capital One - ING DIRECT pend at the Federal Reserve, in Europe, the terms of ING’s bailout by the Dutch government are being questioned by a European Union court in the first case challenging EU conditions on more than $1.3 trillion of bank rescues throughout the region. ING was ordered by the European Commission to sell units to shrink its balance sheet by 45 percent by the end of 2013 and avoid undercutting rivals on prices for some banking products for three years or until it repaid the aid. The EU must approve large state subsidies and can impose conditions on the aid. There have beeen challenges by ING and the Dutch government to the terms of the EU’s approval, which the bank says punished it too harshly for state help in 2008 and 2009. ING said the regulator miscalculated the amount of aid and imposed excessive restructuring demands. We'll see.

February 27, 2012

ICP has now requested reconsideration, following the Federal Reserve Board's February 14 approval of the proposed acquisition by Capital One Financial Corporation (“Capital One”) to acquire ING Bank, FSB and its affiliates (“ING”), to form what would be the fifth largest bank in the country.

One of the FRB's sleights of hand is in footnote 27, where after reciting ICP's objections the FRB says "the Board has determined in a separate action that ING Groep would not control Capital One as a result of this proposal. See Board letter to Mark Menting, Esq. (February 14, 2012)."

So a major contested issue was confined to a side letter on the same day at the approval. Amazingly, the Board has yet to provide even a copy of this letter to ICP, which commented extensively on this part of the proposal, including on ING being under investigation for violating sanctions.

While the Order says the charges are against ING, not ING Direct, in the side letter the Board was addressing ING owning a substantial percentage of Capital One. This segmentation is the type of legal legeredemain by which the FRB allowed the financial meltdown. This Order should be reconsidered, including in light of Capital One's dramatic drop in mortgage lending and did not adequately explain its findings - for example, the FRB asserts that Capital One’s credit card small business lending is minimal in contrast to findings by NCRC and others.

Footnote 10 of the FRB's approval order says

"One commenter expressed concern about ex parte communications and the opportunity for the public to rebut all information that was provided by Capital One. On review, the Board found that the public had a full opportunity to provide the Board with any information related to the factors that the Board must consider in acting on the notice. The information submitted by Capital One, and the release of that information to the public, was in accordance with the Board’s regulations and policies. The Board confirmed that all contacts between Capital One and staff were in accordance with the Board’s rules on ex parte communications."

The FRB should void and reconsider its Order, inter alia following its now appealed under the Freedom of Information Act denial of February 7, 2011 -- emailed to ICP after 5 pm on Feb 7 -- of ICP's FOIA request of October 29, 2011. This document dump was and is beneath the Federal Reserve.

Among the 1040 pages provided (more than 200 have been withheld in full), some show an irregular process tainted by ex parte communications and a disturbingly pervasive resolving door. Some examples, from a single one of the files dumped on ICP on February 7:

Former Federal Reserve legal staffer Andy Navarrete, now Senior Vice President of Capital One, improperly reached out to Scott Alvarez on August 25, 2011;

On November 7, 2011, PARobinson [a] wlrk.com – Patricia A. Robinson, presumably the always cordial Pat Robinson who was in the Federal Reserve Board’s Legal Division working on applications -- wrote to michael.sexton [a] frb.gov and stanlyn.clark [a] frb.gov

"It was great talking to you last week, Mike. Stanlyn, I am sorry that I missed you but hope to catch up very soon (now that my one-year 'cooling off' period has expired).

With all due respect to Ms. Robinson, it is troubling that Capital One could hire and use an attorney who personally knows and worked with all of the Fed attorneys reviewing the application. This led to a November 21, 2011, call about, among other things, the HSBC credit card portfolio, with 3 OCC officials on the call -- tainting that process as well. On November 18, 2011, Ms. Robinson was at the OCC, 8:45 to 10:45 AM. There was another call on December 9, 2011.

As noted in ICP's Feb 7 FOIA appeal, as simply one example, the Fed held ex parte communications with Capital One on November 21, writing a memo ostensibly as a tip of the hat to the rules against ex parte communications. Then the Fed withhold the summary under Exemption 4.

The Fed has even made withholdings from its own August 29, 2011 questions to Capital One. This is an outrage and has been appealed from.

The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in connection with this request for reconsideration.

February 20, 2012

Fed Approves Capital One - ING After Delay & Data Dump, Reconsideration?

By Matthew R. Lee

SOUTH BRONX, February 14, updated -- Some Valentine: the day after the Federal Reserve for the second time postponed decision on the Capital One - ING bank merger, a Fed legal staffer called Inner City Press at 5:15 pm on Valentine's Day to say the deal was approved, but not in the normal way.

Inner City Press asked for an explanation of the February 8 postponement, and the February 13 deferral of decision, but none was provided. Reconsideration will be requested.

  One of the Fed's sleights of hand is in footnote 27, where after reciting Inner City Press' objections the Fed says "the Board has determined in a separate action that ING Groep would not control Capital One as a result of this proposal. See Board letter to Mark Menting, Esq. (February 14, 2012)."

  So a major contest issue was confined to a side letter on the same day at the approval. Footnote 10 of the Fed's approval order says

"One commenter expressed concern about ex parte communications and the opportunity for the public to rebut all information that was provided by Capital One. On review, the Board found that the public had a full opportunity to provide the Board with any information related to the factors that the Board must consider in acting on the notice. The information submitted by Capital One, and the release of that information to the public, was in accordance with the Board’s regulations and policies. The Board confirmed that all contacts between Capital One and staff were in accordance with the Board’s rules on ex parte communications."

   Consider: on the night of February 7, the Fed issued a document dump of some 1040 pages responding to a Freedom of Information Act request Inner City Press filed in October.

   Among the 1040 pages provided (more than 200 have been withheld in full, from ICP and other commenters, NCRC and others), some show an irregular process tainted by ex parte communications and a disturbingly pervasive resolving door. Some examples, from a single one of the files dumped on ICP on February 7, and which ICP commented on to the Fed in the run-up to its February 13 meeting:

Former Federal Reserve legal staffer Andy Navarrete, now Senior Vice President of Capital One, improperly reached out to Scott Alvarez on August 25, 2011;

On November 7, 2011, Patricia A. Robinson at Capital One's law firm – presumably the same Pat Robinson who was in the Federal Reserve Board’s Legal Division working on applications -- wrote to Michael Sexton and Stanlyn Clark at the Federal Reserve:

"It was great talking to you last week, Mike. Stanlyn, I am sorry that I missed you but hope to catch up very soon (now that my one-year 'cooling off' period has expired).

As ICP commented, it is troubling that Capital One could hire and use an attorney who personally knows and worked with all of the Fed attorneys reviewing the application. This led to a November 21, 2011, call about, among other things, the HSBC credit card portfolio, with 3 OCC officials on the call -- tainting that process as well. On November 18, 2011, Ms. Robinson was at the OCC, 8:45 to 10:45 AM. There was another call on December 9, 2011.

The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to ICP's pending appeal.

February 13, 2012

Why did the Federal Reserve postpone its meeting on Capital One - ING from Wednesday afternoon for five days until Monday, February 13? Capital One's spokeswoman said “The board has informed us that the planned meeting for this afternoon has been rescheduled for Monday, February 13th. We understand that the delay is due to a scheduling conflict, and we look forward to their decision early next week."

But there's a problem with this spin, that scheduling made it impossible. At 3:05 pm on Wednesday, Inner City Press got a voice mail from the Federal Reserve's Legal Division, Michael Waldron, about an application that ICP Fair Finance Watch had commented on some time ago: Hawa - Korea Exchange Bank. The Board had just approved the application, Waldron said (without also stating any right to request reconsideration.)

In that Order Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch is, yes, "the commenter."

So if the Fed could approve applications on Wednesday afternoon but chose not to do so for Capital One, why not?

One can hope that the outrageous "document dump" of hundreds of pages on the eve of the Fed's scheduled February 8 meeting, which Inner City Press immediately raised to the highest levels of the Fed, combined with calls Wednesday from NCRC members to open the meeting, caught the Fed's attention.

Then this should, too: Inner City Press, reviewing the documents dumped, has now commented to the Fed that

Among the 1040 pages provided (more than 200 have been withheld in full), some show an irregular process tainted by ex parte communications and a disturbingly pervasive resolving door. Some examples, from a single one of the files dumped on ICP on February 7:

Former Federal Reserve legal staffer Andy Navarrete, now Senior Vice President of Capital One, improperly reached out to Scott Alvarez on August 25, 2011;

On November 7, 2011, PARobinson [a] wlrk.com – Patricia A. Robinson, presumably the always cordial Pat Robinson who was in the Federal Reserve Board’s Legal Division working on applications -- wrote to michael.sexton [a] frb.gov and stanlyn.clark [a] frb.gov

"It was great talking to you last week, Mike. Stanlyn, I am sorry that I missed you but hope to catch up very soon (now that my one-year 'cooling off' period has expired).

With all due respect to Ms. Robinson, it is troubling that Capital One could hire and use an attorney who personally knows and worked with all of the Fed attorneys reviewing the application. This led to a November 21, 2011, call about, among other things, the HSBC credit card portfolio, with 3 OCC officials on the call -- tainting that process as well. On November 18, 2011, Ms. Robinson was at the OCC, 8:45 to 10:45 AM. There was another call on December 9, 2011...

The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to this appeal.

This information must be reviewed, and released and comment allowed thereon, by ICP, NCRC and others, before the Fed considers approving the Capital One - ING proposals.

February 6, 2012

The fight on Capital One - ING continues, as more and more information is withheld. Inner City Press filed this FOIA appeal on February 4:

This is a timely FOIA appeal to the Federal Reserve Board's denial of February 3, 2012 of my FOIA request of January 6, 2012, for all of Capital One's January 3, 2012 submission to the Fed, etc..

The Fed has provide a document with redactions which ICP is hereby appealing. From Capital One's response to the Fed's December 15, 2011 questions, the Fed has blacked out the entirety of Footnote 1, which seemingly explains Capital One's lending in California.

The Fed has blacked out on the top of Page 6 some Capital One argument about how and why it will improve the fairness of its lending.

On Pages 11 and 12, Capital One makes representations to the Fed about with whom it will partner, representations clearly meant to argue for approval of Capital One's applications - but Capital One, and now the Fed, withheld the names and the argument. ICP is appealing.

The bottom of Page 16 is entirely redacted; there is no way to know what type of information it contains, and ICP appeals from the invocation of Exemption 8 (bank supervision) and Exemption 4, including the many redactions from the Exhibits to Capital One's submission.

The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to this appeal.

This information must be reviewed, and released and comment allowed there, before the Fed considers approving the Capital One - ING proposals, protested by NCRC, ICP and others

January 30, 2012

Fifty days after Inner City Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Capital One's withholdings from its November 15, 2011 submission to the Federal Reserve, the Fed responded to ICP: withholding 590 pages in full, and providing to ICP and other commenters a mostly redacted 34 page document.

ICP has nearly immediately appealed, and commented to the Fed:

This is a sixteenth comment from Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch ("ICP") opposing the proposed acquisition by Capital One Financial Corporation (“Capital One”) to acquire ING Bank, FSB and its affiliates (“ING”), to form what would be the fifth largest bank in the country.

The Federal Reserve should re-open its comment period, inter alia following its now appealed under the Freedom of Information Act denial of January 24, 2012 of ICP's FOIA request of December 4, 2011, for "all withheld portions of Capital One's November 15, 2011 submission to the Fed on the pending ING DIRECT application."

It took 50 days for the Fed to respond. Worse, 590 pages are being withheld in full, and of the single 35 page document subsequently sent to Inner City Press -- this appeal is timely -- much has been redacted, including how Capital One would pay for the acquisition,

weaknesses in ING DIRECT (page 3);

all information about Capital One's credit card lending to people with FICO scores below 660, and subprime card lending (page 4);

small business lending (page 5);

due diligence on HSBC's card platform, previously of the predatory lender Household (page 13);

forward sale agreements (page 14 - even the Fed's question is withheld, we appeal that);

mortgage lending (page 16); swaps (page17);

and the entirety of pages 19 through 34, including the Fed's questions. This is outrageous.

The Fed cites Exemption 5, but it how an "intra-agency" exemption could be cited for what Capital One submitted is unclear. ICP opposes the invocation, too, of exemption 8 without explaining in detail the type of information in the 590 pages withheld in full. It is hard or impossible to argue about this black hole of information: the Governor charged with ruling on this appeal should review all of the information in camera, and release all portions that are not strictly exempt.

The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to this appeal.

This information must be reviewed, and released and comment allowed there, before the Fed considers approving the Capital One - ING proposals.

For the reasons of record, and as argued by NCRC, the Federal Reserve should re-open the comment period to fully consider Capital One's related proposal to buy the ex-Household predatory lending platform from HSBC, and the related stealth ING proposals.

January 23, 2012

When in September the Federal Reserve held a public meeting on Capital One - ING in Chicago, Fed legal division official Ms. Thro replied, on camera, to Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch's comments by saying ICP should submit a Freedom of Information Act request. ICP immediately did.

Among other things, ING is reportedly under investigation for violating sanctions, on Sudan, Iran and other elsewhere - topics which deserve a public airing before ING is considered to be allowed to own 9.9% of what would become the fifth largest US financial institution.

Inner City Press returned a telephone call to another Fed Legal Division staffer and voluntarily narrowed its FOIA request, for specific adverse ING information such as the above. The Fed identified responsive information but forwarded the request to the OCC, they say on December 20.

Now, more than three months later, the information is withheld in full by OCC denial on Friday. The OCC's denial does not provide a speck of information, does not give any idea of what is being withheld, and does not even state how many pages are being withheld.

There is no way to assess the propriety of these withholdings in full, ostensibly under Exemption 4. ICP has immediately appealed the withholding(s).

This information about ING must be reviewed, and released and comment allowed there, before the Fed considers approving the Capital One - ING proposals.

For the reasons of record, and as argued by NCRC, the Federal Reserve should re-open the comment period to fully consider Capital One's related proposal to buy the ex-Household predatory lending platform from HSBC, and the related stealth ING proposals.

January 16, 2012

  Responding to the Federal Reserve to allegations that Capital One violates bankruptcy laws, COF's law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in a January 11 submission wroted that it "was unaware of the debtor's bankruptcy because [REDACTION, Pages 3 - 4]." Inner City Press on January 14 challenged this redaction under the Freedom of Information Act, sating that as before and on the still pending requests, all information not clearly entitled to confidential treatment under the narrowest reading of the exemptions should be provided before any decision to approve, even conditionally, COF's applications to acquire ING DIRECT, protected by ICP, NCRC and others.

* * *

  It is argued that Obama "had" to nominate a Deutsche Bank and Carlyle Group hedge fund insider, Jay Powell, to the Federal Reserve as a condition of getting a Democrat also confirmed.

  Meanwhile Democratic representatives are urging Obama to offer a recess appointment for a new head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Twenty eight congressmembers from California signed a January 10 letter, which argued that Obama should use the same legal justification for appointing a new director at the agency that he applied to Cordray and the CFPB.

"As the fiduciary of government-backed entities, there are steps that the FHFA can take to help prevent foreclosures while also protecting taxpayers," they wrote. "Installing a permanent Director of the FHFA will allow the FHFA to move forward to make key decisions that will help keep families in their homes and improve our economy."

  Some wonder why this logic isn't applied to the Federal Reserve Board, where Obama supporters argue that he "had" to nominate a hedge fund insider Jay Powell in order to get any confirmation.

  The Fed is reportedly preparing to rubber stamp Capital One's application to acquire ING DIRECT, protested by NCRC, Fair Finance Watch and others, even as Capital One's lawyers try to withhold the most substantial portions of their responses to the Fed, including on Capital One's related application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to buy from HSBC the subprime credit card platform of the former Household International, charged with nationside predatory lending. Why?

January 9, 2012

In remarks following a speech in Chicago, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard called it unlikely that the central bank will need to buy more bonds to stimulate the economy, in view of recent data on holiday sales and labor market conditions. Bullard also repeated support for an explicit inflation target, which is expected to be a subject of the Fed's meeting later this month.

Capital One put in another submission to the Federal Reserve on its ING DIRECT application -- but then withheld large parts of it as sent to Inner City Press and other commenters. ICP has challenged under the Freedom of Information Act, and submitted the below to the Fed:

The Federal Reserve should re-open its comment period, inter alia following improper withholdings, now challenged under the Freedom of Information Act, from Capital One's (COF's) submissions to the Federal Reserve System dated January 3, 2012, with those improperly redacted by COF's law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

All redacted information should be reviewed and provided before any decision to approve, even conditionally, COF's applications to acquire ING DIRECT. We refer most pressingly to the redacted response to the FRS' December 16 questions, sent to us by email on January 6 by WLRK under cover lever dated January 3, 2012.

COF is required to send us their submission under the FRS' ex parte rules, but has sent us significantly redacted versions.

Under the headings “Mortgage Lending," "Community Development Lending," "Other Lending" and the like, COF makes claims about policies and loans made and then redacts line after line. This also takes place when COF is asked in 1d about its lending geographically: contrary to the spirit and letter of CRA, geographical identifiers are redacted, even footnotes. We challenge each and every one of these absurd redactions, as well as the withholding of purported confidential exhibits 1, 2 and 3.

This should be treated as a FOIA appeal but was submitted through the FRS' FOIA form on January 6 to gain expedited treatment. All information not clearly entitled to confidential treatment under the narrowest reading of the exemptions should be provided before any decision to approve, even conditionally, COF's applications to acquire ING DIRECT.

Even as redacted, the submission make clear that Capital One's ING proposal is related to its proposal to buy the HSBC (ex-Household) credit card platform. HSBC put out a press release bragging about accounts renewed that would to go to Capital One: even regarding this, there are issues. For inclusion in the record: http://big-lots.pissedconsumer.com/lied-to-by-racist-big-lots-worker-20080308114996.html

For the reasons of record, and as argued by NCRC, the Federal Reserve should re-open the comment period to fully consider Capital One's related proposal to buy the ex-Household predatory lending platform from HSBC, and the related stealth ING proposals.

December 26, 2011

Bank of America & Federal Reserve Let Off Hook by DOJ Settlement, As BofA Bluewashed by UN

By Matthew R. Lee

SOUTH BRONX, December 22 -- The $335 million "Countrywide" fair lending settlement, as announced by the Department of Justice on December 21, went out of its way to let off the hook Bank of America and its regulator the Federal Reserve Board.

  The paper of record, without further comment, reported that the settlement was based on a referral by the Federal Reserve, covering a period before Bank of America owned Countrywide.

  But more than three years ago, over the detailed objections of Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch and others, the Federal Reserve allowed Bank of America to buy Countrywide and continue to run its predatory programs, which were slowed only by the subprime financial meltdown.

  Fair Finance Watch found, and Inner City Press reported, that "in 2006, at Countrywide and its higher-cost Full Spectrum, upper income African Americans were confined to higher cost loans over the rate spread 1.92 times more frequently than whites. In 2006, 24.70% of Countrywide's total mortgages were subprime.

  "In 2007, Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America had applied to buy, confined African Americans to higher-cost loans 1.95 times more frequently than whites, and denied the applications of Latinos 1.53 times more frequently than whites."

  The Federal Reserve approved Bank of America's acquisition of Countrywide without any conditions, despite this testimony. The disparities continues at Bank of America after the acquisition, without any action by the Fed.

  Years later comes a settlement that is, in context, a pittance, a smoke screen for a company which has received far more in government bailouts. For shame.

Footnote: Bank of America is also engaged in "blue washing," getting its chairman Charles Holliday named the co-chair of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's High Level Panel on Sustainable Energy for All, despite B of A being protested as the number one funder of mountain top removeal coal mining. Now that B of A has settled charges of racial discrimination, will the UN take note?

* * *

As the Federal Reserve (and OCC, which will be a separate story) try to shield the Capital One - ING - HSBC deals, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has submitted to the Fed a FOIA appeal of the Fed's FOIA denial the the FOIA request of September 28, which stated:

This is a request under FOIA for the entirety of ING's request for a non-control determination to own up to 9.9% of Capital One, and all records reflecting any FRS communications regarding the request or ING from January 1, 2011 to the date of your final response to this request.

Background: at yesterday's public meeting in Chicago on Capital One - ING DIRECT, Ms. Thro of the Legal Division commented on Inner City Press' testimony, that ICP "can file a FOIA request" for ING's request. This is that request, and for communications, and response should be expedited before October 12, or Capital One - ING DIRECT comment period should be extended. Thank you.

Despite Ms. Thro's public comment about the ability to file a FOIA request and implication what one would thereby receive the requested documents, on a timely basis, it took two and a half months for the Fed to respond. This constructive denial should be explained and acted on in response to this appeal.

Worse, among the documents subsequently sent to Inner City Press nearly everything is redacted.

Of the August 15 submission by Sullivan & Cromwel (S&C), the letter requesting confidential treatment is provide: but the entirety of the referenced "Annex A" is withheld.

The denial letter claimed that "the nature and amount of information being withheld will be evident from the face of the documents being provided." This is not true, and should be reversed, explained and acted on in connection with this appeal.

From the September 29 S&C cover letter, the area under Mark Menting's signature is blacked out, with the notation "N/R." Since ICP requested "all" documents, it is absurd to call this portion of the submission, whatever it is, "non responsive." If it is the people who the letter is cc-ed to, the Fed has hit a new low that must be reversed, explained and acted on in connection with this appeal.

Also, the entirely of the September 29 Annex A, including its footnote, is redacted.

Getting even worse, of the November 18 submissions, even a portion of the request for confidential treatment is redacted, as well as the entire annex.

Of the November 23 submission, two and a half paragraphs of S&C's letter to Ms. Thro are redacted - each and every redaction is hereby being appealed, including again the absurd blacking out of the area under Mr. Menting's signature.

From the November 29 submission, the blacked out "N/R" is on a separate page. It is absurd to claim, in response to the request -- invited by Ms. Thro -- for information related to the any non-control determination that this material, which S&C's letter says is related to the requested non-control determination, is "not responsive." The Fed is increasingly abusing and evading FOIA and this must be not only reversed, but explained and accountability imposed in response to this appeal.

Here is another just filed FOIA appeal:

This is a timely FOIA appeal to the Federal Reserve Board's partial denial of my FOIA request and letter of October 23, 2011 related to the proposed acquisition of US-based Bank of East Asia by the China Investment Corporation, and Central Huijin Investment Limited and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), owned by the Chinese government.

The Fed's response, regular mailed on December 9 -- this appeal is timely -- decides to limit ICP's FOIA request to only the portion related to the Community Reinvestment Act, because Inner City Press mentioned the CRA. And so the White & Case submission of October 17, which ICP was supposed to get under the Fed's rules against ex parte communication, has the responses to items 4, 5 and 6 withheld as "not responsive."

This makes a mockery both of FOIA and of the Fed's rules against ex parte communication. On October 23, Inner City Press submitted including to the Office of the Secretary of the FRB a letter stating in part that

"I filed a timely challenge to the applications involving Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (and its ultimate parent the Chinese government -- since the PRC government is the ultimate controlling shareholder, this letter timely questions why the PRC government is not an applicant here) to acquire 80% of Bank of East Asia. The FRB on October 6 asked ICBC three questions, including one CRA and consumer compliance, and told ICBC to send us a copy, under the rules against ex parte communications... We note that the signatory counsel for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Bank is the former general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and believe that in this context it is particularly important that the information be provided and a public hearing held. Please send all of the improperly withheld information"

Because ICP gave the example of the withheld CRA response, the Fed decided to ignore ICP's right to the rest of the submission, despite the statement about "all of the improperly withheld information" -- that is, any part of the information ICP should have gotten under the rules against ex parte communication, minus that part explicitly exempt under FOIA.

The Fed is now trying to use "non-responsive" as a way about FOIA, to withhold without even citing a FOIA exemption. It is an outrage, and on appeal ALL of the applicants' October 17 submission should be released.

December 19, 2011

The Fed governors on December 16 approved an application with the boilerplate statement that they are concerned when there are disparities in HMDA data. Well, in the Miami Metropolitan Area, Eurobank in 2009 made NONE of its conventional home purchase and home improvement mortgage loans to African Americans. And the Fed has whitewashed and given its blessing to this exclusion...

December 12, 2011

What a scam: a challenged bank, required to send a copy of its submission to the Federal Reserve to Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch, told the Fed on November that it was forwarding a copy of its response to ICP. But despite a November 14 cover letter, it wasn't actually put in the mail to ICP until December 5. What will the Fed do? Watch this site...

December 5, 2011

Amid the Federal Reserve's delay of FOIA requests, and abuse of FOIA, Capital One was required to send a copy of its November 15, 2011 submission to the Federal Reserve to ICP. But under the heading "Community Reinvestment Act," Capital One says "for additional responsive information, please see Capital One's... Confidential Responses enclosure." ICP has now submitted a request challenging the withholding of CRA responses, as well as Capital One's submissions on the key question of how much of its and HSBC's business is subprime, and the connection between ING DIRECT's loans and depositors. Watch this site.

November 28, 2011

The fraudulence of the Fed's appointment of "community" representatives to its Reserve Bank board has been made clear in New York. On a recent WNYC radio debate about Occupy Wall Street, defense of banks was left up to one Kathryn Wilde of the David Rockefeller-founded NYC Partnership. Once she fell under attack, host Brian Lehrer added to her c.v., saying she is on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Why?

November 21, 2011

...Not only about community groups and supporters of Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders, but also on personal experience, down at Occupy Wall Street, there is a lot of criticism of the Federal Reserve and its accountability, some of it fair and some unfair. The best way to distinguish the two is by being transparent.

But when we submit FOIA requests to the Fed, the responses are often delayed, often heavily redacted, and sometimes don't come at all.

Without mentioning any particular pending applications -- I've been told we can't, even though FOIA responses show that the Fed meets with applicants, and outside counsel who used to work in the Federal Reserve System, all the time -- be aware that most community groups make FOIA requests in connection with application they want to comment on.

So to receive responsive documents after the comment period is closed, or even after the application is decided, I mean, approved, is an abuse of FOIA.

While the Federal Reserve Banks often provide the portions of application for which the applicant has not requested confidential treatment, the Fed seems to have no way or commitment to review the propriety of applicants' requests for confidential treatment. There are no repercussions for making over-broad requests for confidential treatment, and so many applicants do, even for submissions that are explicitly label "CRA" submissions.

I'd suggest that comment period not be allowed to close until at least the portions of an application which are not entitled to confidential treatment under FOIA have been provided to the public.

Then there is the matter of what the Fed withholds. The Fed overuses exemption 8 as a blanket - anything to do with regulation - and makes its own processing opaque by overusing exemption 5. Tellingly, the Fed has taken to redacting things that are not exempt from FOIA from the pages it gives out, if the material was "not responsive to the request."

This brings me to the new low the Fed has hit: denying or "rejecting" requests allegedly because the Fed doesn't know what's being requested. I asked for Fed communications by a particular Reserve Bank president -- I won't say who, but he's nominated for the FDIC -- and the response was that searching for his common first name, even with less common last name, would be to burdensome. So NO record were provided.

Each of these things can be fixed, if you and the Governors provide a minimum of oversight. And the Fed, as well as the public, would benefit.

November 14, 2011

The Federal Reserve should re-open its comment period, as while Capital One would presumptively become a global systemically important bank under Basel III, subject to loss absorbency requirements ranging from 1% to 3.5% of risk-weighted assets, Capital One is publicly said it is assuming this will NOT be the case, and has premised its application to the FRB on this dubious assumption.

Also, according to its Form 10-Q filed November 7, Capital One Financial Corp. increased its mortgage repurchase reserves for uninsured securitizations. For the reasons of record, the Federal Reserve should re-open the comment period to fully consider Capital One's related proposal to buy the ex-Household predatory lending platform from HSBC.

Meanwhile the FRB is again and again extending its time to respond to FOIA requests related to these applications. The comment period must be extended.

November 7, 2011

Capital One's October 28 submission to the Federal Reserve -- sent to ICP by regular mail on October 31 -- states at the top of page 9 that subprime lending is good -- in direct contrast with Capital One's (first) response which said that NCRC urging it to do FHA lending down to 580 FICO scores "would qualify as subprime lending" and "put taxpayers dollars at risk" -- which is it? Maybe buying the ex-Household predatory lending platform from HSBC has change Capital One's position on subprime.

October 31, 2011

And so most recently the Federal Reserve "rejected" a Freedom of Information request about Capital One - ING DIRECT based on fees. Why not just start processing the request -- the Fed often extends its time anyway -- and ASK the requester about fees? Unless of course the fee issue is just a pretext not to give information...

October 24, 2011

In the continuing saga of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (and its ultimate parent the Chinese government) to acquire 80% of Bank of East Asia, the Federal Reserve on October 6 asked ICBC three questions, including one on CRA and consumer compliance. But ICBC's counsel's letter dated October 17 say as to CRA, "please see the confidential response separately provided." It is outrageous to withhold the entirety of a response about CRA, totally out of keeping with what other banks do. The information should be released and be allowed to be commented on. Watch this site.

October 17, 2011

The Fed closed its comment period on Capital One - ING DIRECT with more than 300 comments in opposition in the record, and while evading and outright ignoring and refusing to respond to FOIA requests. We'll have more on this.

October 10, 2011

The Federal Reserve continues to hit new lows, now refusing to process Freedom of Information Act requests even as, on camera at their public meeting in Chicago about Capital One - ING DIRECT, Fed official Thro said Inner City Press can submit a new FOIA request. Now dated October 6 comes to letter refusing to process a request, the first time the Fed has done this. And what a time to do this it is. Watch this site.

October 3, 2011--

  At the second of the Federal Reserve Board's three public meetings on Capital One's application to acquire ING DIRECT, the Federal Reserve's Allison Thro decided to "comment" on the testimony, telling Inner City Press to submit a new Freedom of Information Act request for ING's "request for a non-control determination" for its proposal to own 9.8% of Capital One. Inner City Press has said ING should apply, to allow comment on issues like ING being under investigation for violating sanctions and doing business in Sudan and Syria. Now the Fed says to request a copy of ING's "request for a non-control determination" -- on which no public comment is accepted. And the Fed has delayed responding ICP's pending FOIA requests.
 
  Nevertheless, ICP the next day submitted a new FOIA request, which has yet to even be acknowledged by the Fed. Watch this site.

September 26, 2011

As of September 25, it appears that the Fed has yet to put online the transcript of the public meeting on Capital One - ING Direct held 5 days previous, much slower than the UN, IMF and other agencies work.

September 19, 2011

After Gov. Tarullo's unprecedented speech, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch put in an eighth comment to the Federal Reserve on Capital One, including

"ICP has received an FRB letter of September 12, responding to ICP's August 19 FOIA request by saying "there may be delays." The comment period should, in that case, be extended. In this context it is unreasonable to expect new FOIA requests, for example for the withheld portions of the September 9 response Capital One was supposed to send. The improperly withheld portions from be provided forthwith."

September 12, 2011

So the Fed asked Capital One to respond to some questions by September 9 and send a copy to commenters. So where is the response? Watch this site.

September 5, 2011

After the Federal Reserve's belated announcement of three public meetings on Capital One - ING Direct, Inner City Press has commented as follows to the Fed:

It is reported that "[a]lthough Federal Reserve Board officials promised to unveil a long-awaited package of key Dodd-Frank rules by the end of the summer, the central bank is likely to need more time to complete them. The rules, which implement Section 165 of the regulatory reform law, cover some of the biggest issues in financial services, including risk-based capital requirements, leverage, resolution planning and concentration limits."

Given the issues raised, including by Federal Reserve official Thomas Hoenig and NCRC and others, about this proposal, it is imperative that the Fed either finalize these regulations before the public meetings, or further extend the comment period...

As noted, on August 11, the day after Capital One announced a related proposal to acquire HSBC's largely subprime credit card business (much of which HSBC acquired along with the scandal tainted Household International), ICP asked that the comment periods should be extended specifically to allow comment on the proposals together, to avoid a segmented and illegitimately limited review.

ICP has yet to receive documents or even a confirmation of receipt of its FOIA Appeal of the improperly withheld records concerning Capital One, ING and the FRS. It is also still not clear what the FRS has done in response to ING's request for a ruling -- without any public comment -- that it would not control Capital One while owning up to 9.9% of the company.

August 29, 2011

  On August 25, three days after the Fed allowed the comment period to close on the application, the Fed admitted in writing to improperly withholding under the Freedom of Information Act some of Capital One's many communications with the Fed, writing to Inner City Press that

"subsequent to the Secretary's response of August 3, 2011, Board staff was informed that an employee at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond located additional responsive material. The employee had been traveling between the date of your request on July 22, 2011 and the date of the Secretary's response on August 3, 2011. Accordingly, Board staff was not aware that these additional responsive material existed until after the Secretary had responded to your request on August 3, 2011."

   With Fed chairman Ben Bernanke out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, long time Fed official Tom Hoenig became on his way out a whistleblower, saying on camera that he has

"serious doubts about Capital One's proposed purchase of ING Direct. 'I have very grave concerns about allowing these amalgamations of institutions that by their very structure are too big to fail, too interconnected to fail and I think the burden should be very heavily against that,' Hoenig said."

  We nominate Hoenig as an honest Fed officials, at least on this... Watch this site.

August 22, 2011

The Fed has withhold copious amounts of information from Capital One and ING, including the Fed's response to a stealth request by ING to have even have to apply to come to own up to 9.8% of Capital One. Inner City Press has submitted FOIA requests and appeals, asking for a ruling before the Fed's (initial?) comment period expires on August 22. But the information, and a ruling, have not be received. Arrogance or incompetence?

August 15, 2011

  ...Currently, the Federal Reserve says that the public has only until August 22 to comment on Capital One, and only on the ING Direct proposal. This is akin to segmenting a destructive project into separate pieces so the overall impact is never acknowledged or reviewed.

  In initial comments to the Fed, prior to today's HSBC announcement, less has been said about ING, in part because ING's US business had been directed at a more affluent clientele, and because ING was not viewed as the applicant.

  But after Inner City Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Reserve Board on July 22, a partial response from the Federal Reserve shows that ING has quietly sought a ruling from Fed General Counsel Scott Alvarez that ING should not have submit any application subject to public comment to own up to 9.9% of Capital One. Click here to view the Fed's (first) FOIA partial denial letter, from which Inner City Press has already appealed.

  This would exclude public comment and consideration of ING doing business with the likes of Sudan, Iran, Cuba, Syria and others on the US state sponsors of terrorism list. ING had admitted being under investigation for, and negotiating with the US Department of Justice about, such violations, and there have been expressions of Congressional concern, which the Fed could ignore by granting ING's stealth request.

  The documents obtained under FOIA show that ING, represented by the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, on July 15 wrote to the Fed's Alvarez asking for "written confirmation that [ING] will not be deemed to directly or indirectly 'control' Capital One for purposes of the Bank Holding Company Act upon the consummation of the Bank Sale."

Earlier in ING's 13 page request, on which the Fed has until now not solicited or accepted any public comment, ING says that the shares with which Capital One would pay it for ING Direct would "represent between 9.7% and 9.9% of the outstanding shares of Capital One's Common Stock on the closing date." Click here to view some of the released records, including Sullivan & Cromwell's letter to the Fed for ING.

Under the Bank Holding Company Act, any holding over 4.9% can be considered control. One would think, given the issues raised, that the Fed would solicit comment and hold the requested public hearings on ING's request to own nearly 10% of Capital One. But it has only come about because of the Fed's partial FOIA response.

Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch immediately submitted a comment to the Fed and its chairman Ben Bernanke formally demanding the ING submit an application, and joining in requests by NCRC and others for public meetings and an extension of the comment periods until at least October 22.

In a FOIA appeal already filed with but not yet even acknowledged by the Fed, Inner City Press has demanded all withheld records about ING's stealth request, as well as the withhold portions of Capital One's application, which range from exhibits about money laundering to ING's mortgage portfolio.

Amazingly, the Fed mis-read Inner City Press' FOIA request as only asking from Fed communications with ING and Capital One about the proposed acquisitions, when in fact Inner City Press requested all records reflecting Fed communications concerning either of the two companies.

The Fed has provided such records, including internal Fed emails about the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Governor Warsh's meeting with its chairman, in previous responses to Inner City Press.

  The Fed has also withheld records about an "ex parte" meeting as far back at May 26 between Capital One's Kevin Murray (SVP of Regulatory Relations), John Finneran and Gary Perlin with a range of Fed officials.

August 8, 2011

On July 22, Inner City Press submitted to the Fed a formal FOIA request for

"the entirety of the below-captioned applications, and for all records reflected FRS communications with the companies at issue for the past 12 months, and up until the date of your final response to this timely request. There is a comment period, currently running through August 18, and we are requesting that you response as quickly as possible to allow any necessary FOIA appeal before the comment period closes. Please advise. Here are the applications / companies:

Capital One Financial Corporation, McLean, Virginia ING Bank, FSB, Wilmington, DE, & indirectly acquire voting shares of Sharebuilder Advisors, LLC, & ING Direct Investing, Inc., Seattle, Washington - operating a fsb & investment financial advisory& securities brokerage services - 225.28 4 Richmond 08/18/2011" (Emphasis added.)

Note that the request was for "all records reflecting FRS communications with the companies" -- Capital One and ING -- NOT, as mis-recited in the Fed's August 3 denial, only communications related to the application.

While we do not have to explain the reason for a FOIA request, for the record on the appeal, since we are alleging fair lending violations at Capital One, and sanctions and money laundering violations at ING, we have stated that we wish to review all non-exempt FRS communications about these companies and issues.

The Fed Denial also improperly seeks to limit the request to communications between FRS staff and the companies, excluding communications inside the FRS (or between the FRS and other parties) ABOUT the companies. This was requested, and in responses to other identically worded FOIA requests from ICP even just this year on Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the Fed has provided intra-FRS emails about companies.

The Denial's blatant mis-quotation of the request denied access to these important records, seemingly intentionally so. Accordingly, we have immediately appealed and requested the improperly withheld records, and a rule, by the August 22 expiration of the comment period on the application, which should be extended as also requested by NCRC. We'll have more on this.

August 1, 2011

While the Federal Reserve tries to evade its duties under FOIA, most recently by claiming that it does not have to deal with request that are made in connection with comments on mergers, the Fed has for more than a week, in the face of two separate requests from Inner City Press, failed to maintain and fix its online FOIA submission form. The Fed may not want to be transparent, but the law requires it. Watch this site.

July 25, 2011

So the Federal Reserve has received Capital One's application to acquire ING, saying the comment period runs through August 18. But on July 24, the Fed's online e-FOIA form to request the application wasn't working, and the Secretary's Office didn't confirm receipt of a separately emailed request....

July 18, 2011

When the Fed hauled off and approved Comerica's Sterling application last year, it said that 2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act aggregate data is not available yet. This after the Fed received a timely comment that, among other things

“In 2010 for all loans, Comerica confined African Americans 6.26 times more frequently than whites to higher cost, rate spread loans. At Comerica, 11.3 percent of loans to African Americans were over the rate spread, versus only 1.9 percent of loans to whites.”

The Fed has enough 2010 HMDA data to review these disparities, but did not. For shame.

July 11, 2011

It has become clear that there is no legal basis for the government of China to have not applied. The BHC Act excludes US governments, not foreign; the Fed has simply read in an exemption. But consider: foreign governments can be subject to asset freezes, such as the one imposed by the UN Security Council and US government on Libya.

Clearly, ownership by foreign governments poses issues that ownership by US government entities does not. The Fed has been wrong to read an exemption, and should now require an application by the Chinese government. On the current record, these applications should not be approved.

After challenging withholdings, what I received behind a White & Case cover letter of June 30, 2011 is still incomplete. ICBC's counsel's letter dated June 6 says as to fair lending, “Please see Confidential Exhibit 1 (separately provided).”

Now belatedly a portion has been provided. But it refers to a interviews, then withholds the characterization. It says actions have been taken to ensure fair lending compliance - then withholds them. But

In the New York City Metropolitan Area, Bank of East Asia in 2009 made none of its conventional home purchase and refinance mortgage loans to African Americans and Latinos. Even among its Asian refinance borrowers, all had incomes over 100% of MSA median, mostly over 120% of median. In the Los Angeles MSA, all of Bank of East Asia's refinance leading was to Asians with incomes over 120% of MSA median.

Also still withheld: HMDA, second review, even future products, which make a mockery of the Fed's rules against ex parte communications. Other banks routinely provide copies of such answers, undermining any claim of competitive harm.

The comment period should be extended and no decision made until this improperly withheld information is provided. All non exempt portions of which should be released and the comment period extended, and all improperly withheld information provided.

We note that the signatory counsel for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Bank is the former general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and believe that in this context it is particularly important that the information be provided and a public hearing held.

July 4, 2011

Four weeks after Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and its ultimate parent the Chinese government withheld the fair lending and future products portions of their submissions to the Federal Reserve, and Inner City Press complained, portions have now been released and the comment period on them extended though July 11. We will have more on this -- for now, consider this op-ed in the American Banker: http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/china-investment-corporation-bank-holding-company-act-1039482-1.html

June 27, 2011

The Federal Reserve's approval of Bank of Montreal to buy M&I, delivered the day BEFORE a public official's public hearing in Milwaukee, confines most of the issues to footnotes. Bailout? Note 16:

“Some commenters expressed concerns about the compensation to be paid to certain management at M&I Bank in light of M&I’s participation in Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program. As noted, M&I’s preferred shares held by Treasury under the program will be fully redeemed as part of this proposal. In addition, the Board has reviewed the financial and managerial factors in this proposal, including the compensation noted by commenters, in the context of the financial and managerial condition of the Applicants, M&I, and the resulting organization.”

Note 16: “Harris Central is a special-purpose bank exempt from performance evaluations under the CRA. 12 CFR 345.11(c)(3).”

For HMDA disparities, the Fed claims that the 2010 data, which it has yet to release, shows improvement. And on impacts on the community:

“A commenter expressed concern that the proposed acquisition would result in a loss of jobs. The effect of a proposed transaction on employment in a community is not among the factors that the Board is authorized to consider under the BHC Act, and the federal banking agencies, courts, and the Congress consistently have interpreted the convenience and needs factor to relate to the effect of a proposal on the availability and quality of banking services in a community.”

We'll have more, and soon, about the Fed's putative respect for what Congress says. Watch this site.

June 20, 2011

The Fed has hit a new low, saying it does not have to look at Morgan Stanley's Saxon ripping off military servicemembers because it's 24.9% of Morgan Stanley being acquired:

“A commenter asserted that recently announced losses at a joint venture between MUFG and Morgan Stanley reflect poorly on MUFG’s managerial capacity and its ability to avoid predatory lending. MUFG has reviewed management and controls at the joint venture and has strengthened its risk-management framework. In addition, MUFG has increased the amount of capital held by the joint venture. There appears to be no relationship between the losses at the joint venture, which engages in securities activities in Japan, and predatory lending, as asserted by the commenter.

“The commenter also referred to news reports regarding Morgan Stanley’s mortgage servicer, Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc., with respect to a class action lawsuit involving the Home Affordable Modification Program and a lawsuit under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. In addition, the commenter referred to a settlement by Morgan Stanley with the Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts regarding allegedly unfair residential mortgage loans. As noted above, MUFG does not control the operations of Morgan Stanley and cannot exercise a controlling influence over its management. Moreover, as part of its ongoing supervision of Morgan Stanley, the Board monitors the status of government investigations, consults as needed with relevant regulatory authorities, and periodically reviews Morgan Stanley’s liability from material litigation.

“Finally, the commenter raised allegations that are outside the limited statutory factors that the Board is authorized to consider when reviewing an application under the BHC Act.”

A new low....

June 13, 2011

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, already asking that the plain language of the Bank Holding Company Act be ignored, is now further thumbing its nose at the public and the Fed's normal process. After a CRA challenge to its application to acquire 80% of Bank of East Asia, the Fed asked ICBC six questions, including one on fair lending and another on CRA.

ICBC is required to send a copy of its answers to those who protested. But what Fair Finance Watch got is a letter that quotes the Fed's questions, then says as to fair lending, “Please see Confidential Exhibit 1 (separately provided).” As to CRA (Question 2), ICBC says “Please see Confidential Exhibit 2 (separately provided).”

ICBC's lawyer Ernest Patrikis used to be the General Counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. Other banks routinely provide answers to such questions to those who have commented. Watch this site.

June 6, 2011

So the Federal Reserve has a rule against ex parte communication, in which a protested bank is required to send copies of its communications to the Fed to the protester. But when Comerica and its law firm wrote to the Fed on May 25, the copy they sent to Fair Finance Watch by regular mail mostly referred to a separate letter that they did not provide. They wrote, in response to a question about fair lending, that “Comerica Inc has provided detailed information regarding Comerica Bank's fair lending policies, procedures and practices in the April 5, 2001 letter.” So where's that letter?

May 30, 2011